Effects of particle size on two-phase flow loss in aluminized solid rocket motors

This study investigates the two-phase flow loss in aluminized solid rocket motor (SRM) by addressing the effects of particle size. A simplified axisymmetric 2D numerical simulation model is developed to simulate the flow field of the SRM, in which the two-phase flow consists of seeded inert Al ₂ O ₃ particles and burned gas. The numerical model is verified by lab-scale SRM tests. The results show that the numerical simulation predicts SRM performance accurately when quantitatively capture the true particle size. Based on numerical simulations over a broad range of particle diameters, the effects of particle size on the gaseous phase and particle velocity distributions, particulate trajectories, and the thrust coefficient are systematically examined. It is found that with the same mass content of inert particles the two-phase flow loss decreases with increasing particle size.