Investigation of the Thermal Field on Solid Propellant Grain with Cracks by Moving Particle Semi-Implicit Method

Under extreme operating conditions in gun barrel like high pressure and high temperature, fracture or cracks may propagate on solid propellant grains and become a threat to firing safety. The existence and the propagation of cracks will affect the combustion efficiency of solid propellant, and the thermal field of grain with cracks needs to be simulated. In this paper, we applied one of the Particle Methods, Moving Particle Semi-implicit Method, to the investigation of the thermal field on solid propellant grain with cracks. An improved MPS operator is first introduced and the treatment on crack boundary including Robin boundary condition is also presented. The application of particle method to heat conduction is verified by the simulation of a seven-perforated propellant grain under fixed temperature. Then, with different properties of cracks like the length, the number and the boundary conditions, the thermal field distribution of propellant grain and heat transfer efficiency are compared and analyzed.

Automated summary

The study applied the Moving Particle Semi-implicit Method to investigate the thermal field on solid propellant grain with cracks, verifying its application in heat conduction. By comparing and analyzing the thermal field distribution and heat transfer efficiency under different crack properties, conclusions were drawn.