%0 Journal Article %A Kuo, Kenneth K. %A Acharya, Ragini %D 2010 %I Begell House %K reaction kinetics, graphite, nozzle erosion, high-pressure rockets, turbulent flows, convective heat flux %N 1 %P 71-90 %R 10.1615/IntJEnergeticMaterialsChemProp.v9.i1.50 %T EFFECT OF REACTION KINETIC SCHEMES ON GRAPHITE ROCKET NOZZLE EROSION RATES %U https://www.dl.begellhouse.com/journals/17bbb47e377ce023,25d87ab6636f9f8a,5b2d27791475bdba.html %V 9 %X The propulsive performance of solid rocket motors experiences degradation due to the erosion of the exposed internal surface of the rocket nozzle. Generally, the ammonium perchlorate/hydroxylterminated polybutadiene composite propellants used in the rocket motors generate high concentrations of oxidizing species such as H2O, OH, and CO2 in the combustion products at temperatures ranging from 2800 to 3100 K. The combined high temperature and high oxidizing species concentration provide detrimental conditions for the graphite material erosion via heterogeneous chemical reactions. Earlier, the authors utilized a comprehensive numerical program called graphite nozzle erosion minimization (GNEM) code for prediction of graphite nozzle throat erosion rates as a function of pressure and propellant composition. The GNEMcode is a comprehensive predictive code for simulation of compressible turbulent reacting boundary layer flows. From this study, it was found that the magnitudes of nozzle throat erosion rate strongly depend on the chemical kinetic scheme when nonmetallized solid propellants were used under relatively low operating pressures (P ≶ 8 MPa). This observation put strong emphasis on the importance of using more accurate and definitive kinetic parameters for graphite oxidation reactions, especially at conventional rocket motor operating pressures. In this work, the GNEM code was modified to include the von K´arm´an equation for convective heat transfer calculations and compared with the Bartz correlation. The high-temperature, high-pressure semiglobal reaction kinetics recently developed by Culbertson and Brezinsky (Culbertson, B. and Brezinsky, K., High-pressure shock tube studies on carbon oxidation reactions with carbon dioxide and water, Energy Fuels, vol. 23, no. 12, pp. 5806–5812, 2009) was coupled with the GNEM code and compared to the reaction kinetics established earlier by Libby-Blake (Libby, P. A. and Blake, T. R., Burning carbon particles in the presence of water vapor, Combust. Flame, vol. 41, pp. 123–147, 1981), Golovina (Golovina, E. C., The gasification of carbon by carbon dioxide at high temperatures and pressures, Carbon, vol. 18, pp. 197–201, 1980), and Bradley et al. (Bradley, D., Dixon-Lewis, G., Habik, S. E., and Mushi, E. M. J., The oxidation of graphite powders in flame reaction zone, Proceedings of 20th Symposium (International) on Combustion, vol. 20, pp. 931–940, 1984). A comparison of experimental data and predicted results from GNEM code shows the best agreement with the results obtained with the kinetic parameters obtained by Bradley et al. (1984), followed by Culbertson and Brezinsky (2009). %8 2010-03-01