A novel plumes treater for solid rocket motors during hot‐firing tests using ice tunnel structure

Abstract

AbstractAiming at the perniciousness of the exhausted plumes from solid rocket motors during hot‐firing tests, a novel plume treater is proposed using the ice tunnel device. The feasibility and effectiveness of this ice tunnel treater were successfully verified by tests on two solid rocket motors, XX 127 and XX 500, with different fuel charges of about 1.5 and 700 kg, respectively. Results show that the plume temperature could be greatly reduced from around 2000 to below 100°C through the ice tunnel for both motors, and the effect of noise reduction as well as the elimination of gaseous hydrogen chloride was also measured to be available in the test of XX 500, indicating the new ice tunnel treater could quickly achieve the “three reductions” of high temperature, serious noise, and gas pollution of the solid rocket motor emissions. Besides, a numerical model considering the factors of air entrainment, afterburning, convective heat transfer, radiation heat transfer, and phase change was established to investigate the flow and heat transfer behaviors within the ice tunnel. The plume temperature at the outlet of the ice tunnel was in good agreement with the experimental data. The intensity of afterburning is mainly determined by the amount of entrained air and the CO concentration. The cooling capacity of the ice tunnel is mainly contributed by convection, air entrainment, and particle radiation. This work could provide new ideas and references for the technological upgrade of the ground test platforms for solid rocket motors.