Trans. Japan Soc. Aero. Space Sci.

Vol. 62, No. 5, pp. 284–289, 2019

DOI: 10.2322/tjsass.62.284

Experimental Investigation of a Solid Propellant Ducted Rocket

with a Chin Type Inlet*

Binbin CHEN,1) Zhixun XIA,1)† Liya HUANG,1) Likun MA,1) and Gang LONG2)
1)
College of Aerospace Science and Engineering, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, Hunan 410073, China
2)
Xi’an Modern Control Technology Research Institute, Xi’an, Shanxi 710065, China

In this study we report an experimental research on the characteristics of combustion chamber in a solid propellant
ducted rocket (SPDR) with a chin type inlet. Two kinds of propellants are tested, including boron-based solid propellant
and hydrocarbon solid propellant. A new configuration of the SPDR with swirling flow is proposed. Effects on combustion
characteristic of swirling flow, chamber length, propellant type and equivalence ratio are conducted. Results show that
combustion efficiency based on temperature rise of the SPDR with swirling flow can reach 95%, which is 7% higher than
the one without swirling flow. Furthermore, the swirler used in this study offers a significant effect on thermal protection.
The combustion efficiency of hydrocarbon fuel-rich propellant is lower than that of boron-based fuel-rich propellant, and
the SPDR using hydrocarbon propellant suffers from an ignition delay problem. When equivalence ratio decreases, com-
bustion efficiency of the SPDR without swirling flow remains the same, whereas combustion efficiency of the SPDR with
swirling flow increases first and then decreases.

Key Words: Combustion Characteristic, Solid Propellant Ducted Rocket, Experimental Investigation, Swirling Flow,
Propellant Type

Nomenclature Tc : temperature of chamber

u: axial velocity
a0 : total pressure recovery coefficient of the convergent w: tangential velocity
part of nozzle p : ensity of the propellant
a: coefficient of rate #: degree
Ac : area of the chamber exit t: operation time
Ag : area of the gas generator throat T : combustion efficiency based on temperature rise
Ap : combustion area of the propellant I : specific impulse efficiency
At : area of the nozzle throat Subscripts
C
: characteristic velocity of gas generator c: chamber
D: diameter exp: experiment
Fg : connected-pipe test thrust g: gas/gas generator
I: specific impulse th: heory
Ma: Mach number 1: in infinite distance
m_ a : average mass flow rate of air Acronyms
m_ g : gas flow rates ER: equivalence ratio
mint : initial mass of propellant SPDR: solid propellant ducted rocket
mr : remaining mass of propellant
n: pressure index of the propellant 1. Introduction
Pc
: total pressure of the chamber
Pg : pressure at the ground The solid propellant ducted rocket (SPDR), also known as
Ph : pressure at the flight altitude ducted rocket or integral rocket ramjet, is a supersonic flight
qðMaÞ: flow function propulsion, it takes the exhaust from a solid propellant gas
r: radius location generator, mixes it with air and burns it to produce thrust.
R1 : outer radius of swirler It is a concept that combining solid propellant rockets with
R2 : radius of chamber airbreathing engines, leading to several advantages over solid
S: swirl number propellant rockets including longer flight capability, higher
t: working time of experiments speed and throttleability, and has received great attention in
T: temperature recent years.1–5) Combustion performance is a critical issue
in the efficient operation of SPDRs1) because it directly af-
© 2019 The Japan Society for Aeronautical and Space Sciences
+ fects mission performance. In the past few decades, many
Received 17 August 2018; final revision received 24 January 2019;
accepted for publication 8 February 2019. studies focused on the combustion performance of SPDRs,
†
Corresponding author, zxxia@nudt.edu.cn accounting for propellant type,6–9) gas injection device,7,10–13)

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 Trans. Japan Soc. Aero. Space Sci., Vol. 62, No. 5, 2019

inlet type10,14–17) and chamber configuration.18–22) hydrocarbon propellant is composed of 35% AP, 25% HTPB
However, most of these studies are forced on SPDRs with and 40% C11H14.
four inlets or two inlets, combustion characteristics of According to the burn rate formula of propellant (formula
SPDRs with chin inlets are not found in open literature. (3)), we can find that the mass flow rate of primary fuel-rich
The chin type inlet could achieve high performance over a gas can be varied by changing the pressure of gas generator,
wide range of Mach numbers, altitudes and angles of at- the pressure of gas generator is controlled by the area of the
tack,23) but it suffer from bad mixing and combustion per- gas generator throat. Therefore, the mass flow rate of primary
formance. Thus, combustion characteristics of SPDRs with fuel-rich gas can be varied by changing the area of the gas
a chin type inlet should be investigated to improve the com- generator throat. The generator throat and the nozzle throat
bustion performance. are made by graphite, and will be replaced during every test.
In current study, combustion characteristics of a SPDR Schematic of the test ducted chamber is shown in Fig. 2,
with a chin type inlet were investigated experimentally, a the detailed geometric specifications are summarised in
new swirler was designed and used to achieve high combus- Table 1. Swirling flow could improve the mixing and com-
tion performance. The influences of swirling flow, chamber bustion performance of SPDRs,24) thus, two types of cham-
length, propellant type and equivalence ratio (ER) were ana- ber with a chin inlet are tested in this study: a chamber with-
lyzed. The connected-pipe apparatus, the test SPDR and data out swirler and another with a swirler. The swirler (Fig. 3) is
processing method are presented in Section 2. In Section 3, very simple, it has a central cylindrical inner wall with a
the test results are provided and the influences of structural 50 mm diameter and a cylindrical–divergent outer wall. It
parameters, propellant type and ER on the combustion char- is designed for installation in the dome region, the primary
acteristics of the SPDR are discussed. Thereafter, conclu- fuel rich gas decelerates to subsonic after flowing through in-
sions are summarized. ner wall of the swirler, the ducted air flows to sidewall of the
chamber and generates a pair of reverse eddies through outer
2. Experimental Apparatus and Data Acquisition wall of the swirler. The Streamline of the SPDR with a swir-
ler is shown in Fig. 4.
2.1. Experimental apparatus The swirl number can be physically defined as the ratio of
As shown in Fig. 1, the connected-pipe test facility used in axial fluxes of swirl and linear momentum divided by a char-
this study comprises a vitiated air heater, a thrust stand and a acteristic radius.22) In the study, the swirl number is calcu-
test ducted rocket. Ethanol, oxygen and air are used to gen- lated at the exit of swirler and is 0.17.
erate hot air in the vitiated air heater, thereby simulating the
stagnation parameters at a certain flight condition. The pa-
rameters include a total temperature of 625 K, and a stagna-
tion pressure of 0.97 MPa, which represents the flight condi-
tion at an altitude of 10 km, and a Mach number of 3.0. The
stagnation pressure is maintained by the mass flow rate of hot
air and the nozzle area at the exit of air heater.
2.2. Test SPDR
The test SPDR includes a chin type inlet, a gas generator, a
ducted chamber and a nozzle. The chin inlet is simplified as a Fig. 2. Schematic of an SPDR chamber with a swirler.
rectangular inlet with a small inlet angle for the laboratory-
scale tests. The gas generator is a small rocket. The nozzle Table 1. Geometries of the chamber.
contains a convergent part with 45 degrees, a columniform Parameter Size Parameter Size
part and an expand part of about 15 degrees. The nozzle Lc (mm) 730/580 Dc (mm) 100
throat is varied to keep chamber pressure. L1 (mm) 53.4 Dg (mm) 76
Two types of propellant are tested in this study: boron- L2 (mm) 132 Dg2 (mm) 88
La (mm) 25 # (degrees) 30
based fuel-rich propellant and hydrocarbon fuel-rich propel- Lb (mm) 75
lant. The boron-based propellant mainly contains 33%
ammonium perchlorate (AP), 29% hydroxyl-terminated pol-
ybutadiene (HTPB), 33% boron (B) and 5% magnesium. The

Fig. 1. Schematic of experimental apparatus. Fig. 3. Schematic of the swirler.

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The third method is the characteristic velocity approach.

The gas mass flow rate can be calculated as
m_ g ¼ Pg Ag =C
g ð4Þ
The characteristic velocity of gas generator is specified by
the propellant manufacturer. This method is suitable for pro-
pellant types with little deposition at the throat. The throat
area remains the same during the experiment.
The experimental characteristic velocity of the SPDR C
exp
is calculated as follows:
C
exp ¼ a0 Pc
At =ðm_ g þ m_ a Þ ð5Þ
Fig. 4. Streamline of the SPDR with a swirler.
The total pressure is calculated based on the measured
pressure at the end of the chamber, the Mach number in
Z R2  Z R2 
the chamber can be calculated as:
S¼ uwr 2 dr R2 u2 rdr ð1Þ
R1 R1
qðMaÞ ¼ a0 At =Ac ð6Þ
2.3. Data acquisition and processing method qðMaÞ is the flow function. The theoretical characteristic ve-
Three types of parameters are recorded during the experi- locity, theoretical specific impulse and theoretical tempera-
ments, namely, mass flow rate, pressure and thrust. The mass ture of chamber are calculated by chemical equilibrium
flow rates of liquid and gas are measured by turbo flow me- method. The experimental temperature of chamber can be
ters. The accuracy of the flow meters is about 0.2% of the calculated as
full scale. Pressure is measured by piezoresistive pressure   2
TC, exp ¼ C
exp C
th TC,th ð7Þ
transducers. Two types of piezoresistive pressure transducers
are used. High pressures in the vitiated air heater and gas As the temperature of the hot air is known, the combustion
generator are measured by piezoresistive pressure trans- efficiency based on temperature rise can be calculated as
ducers in the range of 0–10 MPa. Low pressure in the ducted
T ¼ ðTC,exp  Tair Þ=ðTC,th  Tair Þ ð8Þ
chamber is measured by a piezoresistive pressure transducer
in the range of 0–2 MPa. The accuracies of both types of The predicted specific impulse of the test SPDR can be
transducers equate to approximately 0.2%. The thrust force calculated as
is measured by a force sensor (model BLR-2) with an accu-
Ia,pre = ðFg  m_ a va þ ðpg,1  ph;1 ÞAe Þ=m_ g ð9Þ
racy of about 50 N. All data from the sensors transmit to a
PXI measurement system through high-speed Ethernet. The Therefore, the specific impulse efficiency can be calcu-
PXI system is connected to the control system to diagnose lated as follows:
real-time status.
I ¼ Ia,pre =Ith ð10Þ
After the experiments, the data should be processed to
evaluate combustion performance of the test SPDR. During
the data processing, operation time of the ducted rocket 3. Results and Discussion
should be defined first to ensure the mass flow rates of gas.
The combustion efficiency and specific impulse efficiency 3.1. Test results
are then calculated with the geometric parameters and other The effects of swirling flow, chamber length, propellant
measured data. type and ER on combustion characteristics of the SPDR with
Three methods are used to obtain gas flow rates. The first a chin inlet are investigated experimentally and then discussed.
method involves the average mass flow rates of gas flow, The test results are summarised in Table 2. It contains the
which is defined as the combustion mass of propellant div- measured pressure, measured thrust, the combustion efficiency
ided by the operation time of the ducted rocket. Combustion based on temperature rise and specific impulse efficiency.
mass is defined as the initial mass of propellant minus the re- Figure 5 shows the flame and plume of the boron-based pro-
maining mass: pellant during fire test 04. Bright yellow-white flame is ob-
served at the exit of the nozzle, the plume and flame of the
m_ g ¼ ðmint  mr Þ=t ð2Þ
hydrocarbon propellant are similar.
The second method involves the burn rate formula of pro- The throat depositions of both propellant types after the
pellant calculated as experiments are shown in Fig. 6. Deposition exists at the
gas generator throat for both propellant types. Deposition
m_ g ¼ aPgn p Ap ð3Þ
exists at the nozzle throat of the boron-based propellant,
Ap should already be known when using this method. whereas deposition does not exist at the nozzle throat of
Therefore, it is suitable for a propellant with steady combus- the hydrocarbon propellant. Furthermore, the throat area
tion area. undergoes little change when the boron-based propellant is

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Table 2. Geometries of the chamber.

Test No. 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08
Str I I II II II II II II
Pro A A A A A A B B
ER 0.41 0.61 0.46 0.58 0.27 0.44 0.67 0.40
Lc 730 730 730 730 730 580 580 580
Pc 0.55 0.58 0.55 0.56 0.46 0.56 0.53 0.51
Fg 1827 2179 1799 2047 2047 1810 1819 2349
T 0.88 0.88 0.95 0.93 0.41 0.85 0.78 0.61
I 0.80 0.87 0.80 0.85 0.50 0.69 0.68 0.55
Str represents structure, Pro represents propellant, I represents the SPDR
without swirling flow and II represents the SPDR with swirling flow. A rep-
resents the boron-based fuel-rich propellant, and B represents the hydrocar-
bon fuel-rich propellant. The units of Fg , Pc , Lc are N, MPa and mm.

Fig. 7. Definition of work time during experiments.

Fig. 5. Flame and plume during test 04.

a b
Fig. 8. Comparison of pressure evolutions between tests with and without
swirling flow.

combustion performance could be discussed. As shown in

Fig. 8, pressure of gas generator and chamber of these tests
are almost the same, swirling flow is the main difference.
c d
Table 2 indicates that combustion efficiencies of the SPDR
with swirling flow are higher than those of the SPDR without
Fig. 6. Throat deposition of both propellants. swirling flow when ERs are about 0.45 and 0.61, respectively.
a. Deposition at gas generator throat of propellant A. b. Deposition at noz- This result implies that addition of swirling flow can improve
zle throat of propellant A. c. Deposition at gas generator throat of propel-
combustion efficiency because of the enhancement of mixing
lant B. d. Deposition at nozzle throat of propellant B.
between the ducted air and fuel-rich gas by swirling flow. This
modification enhances combustion of the fuel-rich gas from
used. By contrast, it remains almost the same when the hy- gas generator, especially the condensation components, such
drocarbon propellant is used due to the loose deposition of as boron and carbon particles, which provide more than half
the hydrocarbon propellant. of the total combustion energy. According to the previous
Definition of the work time during experiments can be work of the authors,25) oxygen concentration significantly
found in Fig. 7. Zero second represents that the piezoresistive affects the combustion time of boron and carbon particles.
pressure transducers start work, t1 is the time when the air Therefore, mixing enhancement by swirling flow favours
heater starts work, t2 is the time when the gas generator the combustion efficiencies of boron and carbon particles
ignites, t3 is the time when the propellant starts steady com- and could increase the combustion performance of SPDRs.
bustion, t4 is the time when the propellant ends combustion, However, the specific impulse efficiencies are almost the
t5 is the time when the gas generator ends its work, and t6 is same whether there is swirling flow or not. This result may
the time when the air heater ends its work. The work time is be due to that addition of the swirler will cause stagnant pres-
defined from t3 to t4 . sure loss and thrust loss, although tests with swirling flow
3.2. Effect of swirling flow gain higher combustion efficiencies, the thrusts don’t in-
With tests 01 and 03, 02 and 04, effect of swirling flow on crease. Stagnant pressure loss can be decreases when the

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a b

Fig. 9. Ablation of insulation after tests.

a. Ablation of insulation of test 02. b. Ablation of insulation of test 04.

swirler geometry is optimised.

Another advantage of the swirler is thermal protection abil-
ity as shown in Fig. 9. The ablation of insulation in test 02 is Fig. 10. Comparison of pressure evolutions between tests of different
chamber lengths.
much heavier than that in test 04 when the theoretical temper-
atures of these two tests are similar, besides, the combustion
efficiency of test 04 is higher. This result implies that the swir-
ler could improve the thermal protection ability significantly.
It is believed that the swirler generates an annular flow of
the ducted air, which protects the wall from high temperature.
3.3. Effect of chamber length
The chamber length is important in SPDRs design. It
should be long enough to ensure the sufficient combustion
of fuel-rich gas and short enough to decrease the total mass
of the SPDR.
The comparison of tests 03 and 06 show that combustion
efficiency increases when length increases (Table 2 and
Fig. 10) obviously. However, it can’t continue increasing
until 100% with the length increasing. For test 03, the cham-
Fig. 11. Pressure evolutions of test 08.
ber length may be long enough to gain high combustion ef-
ficiency. Improvement may be achieved by organising and
optimising the combustion process using different combus- by the gas phase combustion is low, the condensation par-
tion technologies. In SPDRs, two issues should be regarded: ticles pass through and cannot be ignited. After several sec-
the quick ignition and the rapid combustion of condensation onds, the pressure of gas generator increases much higher as
particles. These issues depend on the mixing process di- shown in Fig. 11, it leads to the increasing of gas flow rate,
rectly. A poor mixing effect significantly increases the full temperature of recirculation zone turns higher, ignition of
combustion chamber length. carbon particles could take place.
3.4. Effect of propellant type To validate this supposition, we conducted a test 07 with
The comparison of tests 06 and 08 and 07 show that the higher ER. The result is shown in Fig. 12. The ignition delay
combustion efficiency in test 06 is higher than those in test phenomenon still exists, but the ignition delay time decreases
08 and test 07. This result implies that the hydrocarbon pro- to less than 1 s. This outcome indicates that the ignition delay
pellant used in this study has lower combustion performance phenomenon has a direct relation to ER and may be caused
than the boron-based propellant. Considering the high specif- by the size of the high temperature zone.
ic impulse, we find that the boron-based propellant is the best 3.5. Effect of equivalence ratio
choice for the SPDRs. The hydrocarbon propellant has little The influence of ER on combustion characteristics of the
deposition and it may be a candidate for variable flow ducted SPDR is experimentally investigated. For boron-based pro-
rockets. pellant used in tests 01 and 02 and in tests 03 to 05, one
Figure 11 shows the ignition delay of the hydrocarbon can find that the combustion efficiencies of the SPDR with-
propellant. The pressure of the gas generator builds up at out swirling flow remain the same when ER decreases from
6 s, but the pressure of the chamber does not change until 0.61 to 0.41. By contrast, the combustion efficiencies of the
9.5 s. This outcome implies that the fuel-rich gas of hydrocar- SPDR with swirling flow increase first and then decrease as
bon propellant is not ignited at the first 3.5 s. The plume in ER decreases from 0.58 to 0.27. For hydrocarbon propellant,
test 08 is black with no flame at first. After several seconds, the combustion efficiencies decrease when ER decreases
it turns grey-black with a yellow flame. The authors suppose from 0.67 to 0.40. This result indicates that the SPDR with
that the condensation phase (carbon) in fuel-rich gas gener- a swirler achieves high combustion performance at high
ated by the hydrocarbon propellant cannot be ignited firstly, ER but low combustion performance at low ER. The swirler
because ER is small, temperature of recirculation zone built should be further optimized for a wide range of ER.

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This work was funded by the National Natural Science Founda- Toru Shimada
tion of China (No. 51406231 and No. 11572349). Associate Editor

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