Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Altered Combustion Characteristics Of Aluminum Fuels Through Low-Level Fluoropolymer Inclusions With And Without In Situ Nanoaluminum., Courtney K. Murphy, Brandon Terry, Steven F. Son

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Aluminum inclusions have been widely used to increase the specific impulse of solid rocket propellant. However, issues arise with the addition of aluminum in the form of agglomeration, which can cause kinetic and thermal losses (i.e., two-phase flow losses) through the nozzle, which can reduce motor performance by as much as 10%. Reduction of agglomerate size may reduce the effect of two-phase flow losses. Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE or Teflon^TM) inclusions into aluminum via mechanical activation (MA, milling) have been shown to produce a smaller coarse agglomerate size due to microexplosion of the composite particles at the propellant surface. Perflouroalkoxy …