U.S.-Belgium Cooperative Science Program: Analysis of the Structure of Fuel/Nitrogen Oxide Flames

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This award will support continued collaborative research between Dr. Melvin Branch, University of Colorado and Professor Pierre Van Tiggelen, Laboratory for Physical Chemistry of Combustion, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. The research will focus on the analysis of the structure of fuel/nitrogen oxide flames. The decomposition of many solid propellants during combustion leads to the formation of gaseous hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen, which can react to support a flame above the surface of the propellant. These flames can provide heat which is fed back to the propellant surface and thereby influence the burning rate. Experimental measurements of many of fuel/nitrogen oxide flames are in progress at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The proposed cooperative research with the Catholic University of Louvain involves the chemical kinetic flame modeling of these data. The research will focus first on the description of the flame profile data for fuel/nitrogen oxide flames using a flame code with a complete chemical kinetic mechanism. The second task will be to use the flame code to predict the burning velocity of free standing flames for comparison with the experimental data. The final task will be to model the chemistry of the ammonia added flames. Both the U.S. and Belgian investigators have significant expertise in the kinetics field. The results of this research will be of benefit to practical combustion problems such as nitrogen oxide production mitigation schemes and the improved performance of nitramine based propellants.