Burning-rate enhancement of organic diazide propellants: Dihalide addition and pressure elevation

Following the recent development of a class of organic diazides as high-energy-density, high-burningrate fuels, an experimental investigation on the combustion, vaporization, and microexplosion of droplets of these organic diazides and their mixtures with alkyl halides at atmospheric and elevated pressures has been conducted in an effort to further enhance their high-burning-rate characteristics. Results show that the addition of small quantities of alkyl dihalides leads to significant advancements in the state of droplet microexplosion, regardless of the halogen substituent and its relative volatility, that increasing pressure dramatically increases the droplet gasification rate, and that these enhancements can lead to order-ofmagnitude increases in the overall gasification rate of the droplet over those of hydrocarbons. The importance of enhanced liquid-phase reaction due to dihalide addition and droplet temperature elevation is emphasized.