A fundamental study of liquid phase particle breakup. Revision

Combustion efficiency of aluminized propellants in solid rocket motors is reduced by incomplete aluminum combustion and two-phase nozzle flow losses. Combustion of these propellants can produce large Al/Al2O3 agglomerates. As a direct result of agglomerate breakup, the aluminum combustion rate is increased, and the thermal energy released is more efficiently transferred into exhaust kinetic energy. This research sought to obtain physical data to characterize the mechanisms of aerodynamic droplet breakup. Experiments have been completed in which conventional liquids and a liquid metal (mercury) was studied. The primary goal of the conventional liquid experiments was to examine the effect of liquid properties (viscosity and surface tension) on the breakup mechanism, time scale, and fragment size distribution. The goal of the mercury experiments was to examine the effect of the much higher surface tension more characteristic of liquid aluminum. A key element of the experimental effort is the use of nonintrusive laser diagnostics including pulsed laser holography (PLH) and laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV). The exceptional temporal and spatial resolution of PLH provided the ability to resolve the mechanism of breakup and the size distribution of the fragments. LDV was used to determine drop velocity distributions along the nozzle revealing the rapid acceleration of the flattened droplets and then, surprisingly, the milder acceleration of the fragments.