DECOMPOSITION AND IGNITION OF
HAN-BASED MONOPROPELLANTS BY ELECTROLYSIS
Open Access
Author:
Khare, Prashant
Graduate Program:
Mechanical Engineering
Degree:
Master of Science
Document Type:
Master Thesis
Date of Defense:
None
Committee Members:
Dr Vigor Yang, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor Vigor Yang, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Keywords:
HAN Constant-pressure homogeneous reactor Electrolytic Ignition
Abstract:
In this research, electrolytically-induced HAN ignition has been studied. The purpose of
the present study is to identify the various parameters and mechanisms dictating the electrolytic ignition of HAN-based monopropellants. Electrochemical mechanisms are established and incorporated into an existing chemical kinetics scheme. The ignition of HAN-water solution by electrolysis has been treated numerically using a constant pressure, homogeneous reactor model. A stiff ODE solver was used in the analysis to handle the highly stiff species conservation and the energy equations. The analysis focuses on the temporal evolution of temperature and condensed and gas phase species. Parametric studies were conducted to investigate the effect of electric current, voltage, volume, initial temperature, and HAN concentration on the ignition time delay. The ignition time delay is found to decrease with increase in current, temperature, and HAN concentration and increase with volume.
