Abstract
A novel high-pressure strand burner with the ability to maintain a continuous feed of a liquid monopropellant is used to investigate the linear burning rates of liquid nitromethane as a function of chamber pressure. A new procedure for obtaining linear burning rates is presented. The present study investigates that pressure dependence in a subset of the low-pressure region, ranging from 3 to 8 MPa, which corresponds to a region with significant discrepancies in existing literature. The linear burning rate of liquid nitromethane is known to have a pressure dependence that follows Saint Robert's Law in select pressure regions. The results fall between the upper and lower limits of existing literature with a pressure exponent of n = 1.106. To complement the experimental results, numerical simulations of a simple 1D burner-stabilized flame were conducted with three different nitromethane mechanisms. Similar to the experimental results, the simulations showed significant discrepancies for the predicted flame temperatures and heat release rate for nitromethane combustion in an inert environment. The combined experimental and modeling results highlight the need to further investigate the sensitivity of the reaction kinetics to different external factors.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 5083-5090 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Proceedings of the Combustion Institute |
Volume | 39 |
Issue number | 4 |
Early online date | 19 Nov 2022 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jan 2023 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- Burn rates
- Liquid monopropellants
- Nitromethane
- Saint Robert's law
- Strand burners