Effect of Organic Fluoride on Combustion Properties of Aluminized Solid Propellant

To suppress the agglomeration of the combustion products in highly aluminum-containing solid propellants, the presented work experimentally investigates the combustion properties of the burning aluminum particles in the different combustion areas of the solid propellant containing the fixed Al content (18%) and the different amounts of the organic fluoride (OF). High-speed photography system is employed to monitor the agglomeration process of the ignited aluminum drops on the burning surface, the quenched particles from the designated combustion areas obtained for morphology and composition analysis, the particle size distribution of both the burning aluminum particles in the combustion flame and the solid combustion products are also analyzed by the dynamic particle analyzer and laser particle analyzer, respectively. Results indicate that the aggregation of the ignited aluminum drops on the burning surface is well depressed by the gaseous fluorinated hydrocarbons released from the organic fluoride, the addition of the organic fluoride effectively decreases the size of the burning Al particles by 50% in the combustion flame, and the volume fraction of the solid combustion products above 10 μm sharply decreases by about 74.2%. The combustion properties show the explosion heat and theoretical flame temperature of the propellants separately decline by 9.5% and 8.8% with the addition of the organic fluoride, the burning rate declines as well.