Meso-scale simulations of aluminum-enriched high-speed multi-material reactive flows

Aluminum particles are a common component of the solid propellants used in rocket and tactical missiles. The aluminum particles are known to burn at a high temperature (~3500°C) and release energy at a high rate in the combustion chamber, consecutively enhancing the thrust produced by the rocket engine. However, the rate of energy release due to the combustion of the aluminum particles and droplets in the combustion chamber is not well characterized. Predictive models for combustion of the aluminum particles and droplets are not available in the scientific literature. The unavailability of such models for the aluminum particle and droplet combustion makes it difficult to developed simulation tools for the design of the rocket engines. The design procedure of a new rocket engine is still heavily reliant on the expensive experiments.

In this work, the combustion of aluminum particles and droplets, subjected to the similar flow conditions as the rocket engines, are studied. Numerical methods are developed to perform computer simulations of the aluminum droplet combustions in high-speed reactive flows. Models for the interaction of aluminum particles and droplets with high-speed reactive flows are developed from the simulation-derived data. The models developed in this work will be helpful in predicting the performance of the solid rocket engines under different operating conditions from computer simulations, instead of performing a series of expensive physical experiments.