Quasi-one-dimensional model of combustion of sandwich heterogeneous solid propellant

The paper describes a quasi-one-dimensional model of combustion of sandwich heterogeneous solid rocket propellant designed to predict the burnup rate of individual components (oxidizer and binder) and the average mass rate of combustion of the entire propellant. This model includes the heat- and mass-transfer and kinetic-gasdynamic processes in the gas phase above the surface of burning solid propellant, as well as the heat-transfer processes in solid material. Included in the calculations are the thermochemical properties of ammonium perchlorate (AP, oxidizer) and of polybutadiene rubber (PBR, fuel). The thermochemical processes are included in the kinetic scheme of two overall chemical reactions involving five effective chemical components. Systematic calculations are performed of the process of solid fuel combustion with different mass ratios of oxidizer to fuel. It is demonstrated that the employed kinetic model of thermochemical processes provides an adequate description of the available experimental data on the rate of combustion of AP- and PBR-based solid propellants.