Combustion of Ammonium Perchlorate monopropellant: Role of heat loss

The combustion characteristics of Ammonium Perchlorate (AP) monopropellant have been revisited. The use of silica grease to prevent heat loss from the sides of the pellet and the ignition methodology opened up new area; one of them being the low pressure deflagration limit (LPDL) of AP itself and the other being the burn rate of AP at different pressures. The new burn rate law for pure AP was obtained for conditions close to adiabatic. Using slow depressurization method, wherein the LPDL was independent of ignition transients, the LPDL of pure AP was found to be 14 bar The burn rate of pure AP at 70 bar was found to be 10.66 mm/s, which was much higher than the ones reported in literature. The pressure index for this case was found to be 0.71. This new result completely changes the understanding of AP combustion and called for a new set of parameters to be developed to predict the results obtained with silica grease on the sides. Using the same set of parameters, along with a heat loss model the predictions for the case when there was no silica grease applied was made. These results were in reasonable agreement with the experimental data reported in literature without the silica grease on the sides of the AP pellet. This brings out the critical role of heat loss in AP combustion.