Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Engineering (MSE)

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Committee Chair

Robert A. Frederick

Committee Member

K. Gabriel Xu

Committee Member

David Lineberry

Subject(s)

Solid propellants--Combustion, Solid propellant rockets

Abstract

The work presented here is a study of a digital method for determining the combustion bomb burning rate of a fuel-rich gas generator propellant sample using the ultrasonic pulse-echo technique. The advanced digital method, which places user defined limits on the search for the ultrasonic echo from the burning surface, is computationally faster than the previous cross correlation method, and is able to analyze data for this class of propellant that the previous cross correlation data reduction method could not. For the conditions investigated, the best fit burning rate law at 800 psi from the ultrasonic technique and advanced cross correlation method is within 3 percent of an independent analysis of the same data, and is within 5 percent of the best fit burning rate law found from parallel research of the same propellant in a motor configuration.

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