Combustion mechanism of tetra-ol glycidyl azide polymer

Tetra-ol glycidyl azide polymer (GAP) is one of the best candidates for the solid fuel of gas hybrid rocket system because of self-combustibility, better mechanical property and high heat of formation, and comprehensive understanding of combustion phenomena is indispensable for such an application. Combustion model of GAP, which is one-dimensional three-phase mode combustion model, was developed by Beckstead et al. and they applied it to tri-ol GAP successfully. We have applied this model to tetra-ol GAP as an initial attempt, and numerical simulation showed that maximum temperatures in the gas phase exceeded those of experimental results significantly, and calculated burning rates were much higher than strand burner data, thus, modification of the model taking account of combustion incompleteness was found to be necessary. Modifications of combustion model were made taking the residue analysis results into account as Blow off Mechanism. Simulated final temperature in the gas phase and burning rate are lowered effectively and coincide well with experimental data adjusting kinetic parameters.