Three-Phase Combustion Modelling: Frozen Ozone, a Prototype System

Abstract

AbstractA number of efforts are currently underway in the U.S. to model the self-sustained combustion of solid energetic materials at the level of fundamental physical processes and elementary chemical reactions. Since many of these materials bum, at least at some pressures, with a liquid surface layer, these models must address phenomena in three physical phases. Most of these modeling efforts have focussed on pure RDX as a prototype. From a systems viewpoint this was a natural choice since it, or materials like it, is one of the components of modem propellants. It is argued here that, from a scientific viewpoint, RDX is already too complex with too many uncertain mechanisms and unavailable supporting data to serve this role effectively. We discuss here a number of issues related to the condensed phase and interfacial phenomena which have not been previously identified and which warrant more detailed research. In this paper frozen ozone is adopted as a more suitable prototypical 3-phase system. In this paper progress toward addressing this system is presented. The first new process to be modelled was a gas/surface reaction A detailed analysis was performed on the reaction mechanisms at play in the ozone flame and how they are affected by the heterogeneous reaction. Other new mechanisms are associated with the multicomponent nature of the liquid surface layer and will be addressed in future work.