Enhanced Propellant Combustion with Nanoparticles

Abstract

Enhanced burn rate results are presented for ammonium perchlorate/Al nanoparticle strand burners at atmospheric (and higher) pressure and for the comparative combustion in a high pressure closed vessel of a solid propellant containing 15% of either conventional micrometer-scale Al or nanometric Al. The burn rate at the smallest nanometric Al particle size appears to be asymptotically approaching an inverse particle-diameter-squared dependence.