Detailed analysis of a quench bomb for the study of aluminum agglomeration in solid propellants

SAFRAN-Herakles Le Bouchet Research Center Vert-le-petit 91710, France

Abstract

A standard quench bomb (QB) − widely used to characterize condensed phase from metalized solid propellant combustion − is studied in detail. Experimental and numerical investigations proved that collected particles are mostly unburned aluminum (Al) agglomerates despite large quenching distances. Particles are actually found to quench early as propellant surface is swept by inert pressurant. Further improvements of the QB are proposed which allow measuring both Al agglomerates and alumina residue with the same setup. Finally, the results obtained on a typical aluminized ammonium perchlorate (AP) / hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) propellant are briefly discussed.