Surface erosion studies in a plasma-propellant interaction experiment
- North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States). Dept. of Nuclear Engineering
Efforts in plasma-chemical launchers are of growing interest for hypersonic mass acceleration technology. Energy transfer and mixing processes in plasma-propellant reactions are complex. The key to successful operation of electrothermal-chemical launchers (ETC) is to enhance and control the burn rate through plasma injection into the propellant. The injected plasma, as an external heat source, is usually produced from an electrothermal source ET plasma. Critical components of ETC launchers are subject to heat fluxes produced by the ET source and the additional heat generated during the combustion of the propellant. A plasma-propellant interaction experiment, PIPE, has been operated to explore the erosion behavior of candidate barrel materials under typical ETC combustion environment. The electrothermal plasma source injects a high density, low temperature plasma into a solid propellant that is followed by a material test stand. The burn rate of the propellant is calculated for each shot and the material erosion is evaluated via weight loss. The chamber pressure, discharge current and voltage, and temperature increase of the material are measured for each shot. Various coated material surfaces have been tested. Experiments were conducted on two samples of each coating, with and without propellant.
- OSTI ID:
- 42997
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-940604--; ISBN 0-7803-2006-9
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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