Experimental study on multiple-pulse performance characteristics of ammonium perchlorate/aluminum powder rocket motor

The performance characteristics of ammonium perchlorate/aluminum powder rocket motor were investigated experimentally based on a powder rocket testing system. Three-pulse experiment with one hour interval and four-pulse experiment with 15 s interval were conducted with a bi-propellant powder feed system. The experiments demonstrate the feasibility of the powder rocket for the multiple-pulse operation and the synchronization of powder feed method. The multiple-pulse performance characteristics were analyzed accordingly. It shows that the motor initiates steadily with the mass flow rate of 2.5 g/s for oxidizer powder fluidization gas and 2.0 g/s for fuel powder fluidization gas. The relative standard deviation was adopted to describe the repeatability characteristics of the pulses. The relative standard deviation of ammonium perchlorate and aluminum pistons velocity is 0.072 and 0.007, and that of oxidizer-fuel mass feed ratio is 0.052. The motor performed well with good repeatability of combustor pressure, start-up response and combustion efficiency during the multiple-pulse tests. Low frequency combustion pressure oscillations，3.6-4.2 Hz with amplitudes up to 18.7% of mean combustor pressure, were encountered. The phenomenon appeared seriously at first pulse, then alleviated at the following pulses. Further analysis of test results showed that increasing chamber pressure could ameliorate the oscillation.