A test campaign to characterize the performance, combustion behavior, and blowoff limit at high mass flux levels of a particular hybrid rocket engine is presented and discussed. The test engine has a nominal thrust level of 300 N, with nitrous oxide () as oxidizer and polymethyl methacrylate as solid fuel. A total of 15 burns have been performed, at three different initial oxidizer mass flux levels: below, around, and above the range with a maximum tested mass flux higher than . No complete blowoff has been observed in the high-mass-flux regime; however, combustion instabilities and spontaneous engine operation shifting, leading to lower combustion efficiency, have been noticed. These phenomena have been analyzed and compared to the theoretical models available in open literature. With the knowledge obtained from the test campaign, the observed low-efficiency unstable behavior can effectively be prevented in future engines operating at high mass flux.
Experimental Characterization of Combustion Instabilities in High-Mass-Flux Hybrid Rocket Engines
Journal of Propulsion and Power ; 32 , 4 ; 958-966
2016-01-11
9 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Experimental Characterization of Combustion Instabilities in High-Mass-Flux Hybrid Rocket Engines
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