A New Look at Ap/Composite Propellant Combustion

Some theoretical studies on the time-independent and oscillatory combustion of nonmetallized ammonium perchlorate (AP)/composite propellants are presented. A coherent and unified interpretation was made of the voluminous data available from experiments related to propellant combustion. Three fundamental hypotheses are introduced: the extent of propellant degradation at the vaporization step has to be specified through a scientific criterion; the condensed-phase degradation reaction of ammonium perchlorate to a vaporizable state is the overall rate-limiting step; gas-phase combustion rate is controlled by the mixing rate of fuel and oxidizer vapors. In the treatment of oscillatory combustion, the assumption of quasi-steady fluctuations in the gas phase is used to supplement these hypotheses.