AAAR 35th Annual Conference October 17 - October 21, 2016 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Development of a Powder Injection System to Inject Surrogate Material in Rocket Propellant Smoke Plumes
ZAHRA CHAUDHRY, Andrea Brown, Felix Sage, Matthew Yeager, Benjamin Alvarez, Drewry Benjamin, Andrew Lennon, JHU APL
Abstract Number: 690 Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods
Abstract Under the Aerospace Nuclear Safety Program, there exists a need to understand the dispersal of aerosolized plutonia fuel in the unlikely event of an early launch accident resulting in a fragment of burning solid rocket propellant landing on a space radioisotope power system. To understand the dispersion of plutonia aerosols, several experiments have been carried out to discern the underlying physics and chemical thermodynamics of rocket propellant burns. For the spring 2016 testing, several non-toxic metal oxide powders were selected as surrogates for plutonia for their thermal, chemical, optical and physical properties. A Powder Injection System was developed to meet the following requirements: inject a range of particle masses from 40 mg to 8 g, particles must stay entrained in the smoke plume, it must be easy to clean and change powders, it must withstand high temperatures, and feature automated control for the safety of the operators. The team selected the Lambda Doser (Lambda Laboratory Instruments, Switzerland) to meter the powder into an Aerosol Capacitance Chamber, where the particles were able to deaglomerate prior to injection into the smoke plume. The complete system included air handling and conditioning systems, an ACC and a curved exit region where particles were injected by dried air into a smoke plume created by a block of burning rocket propellant. In order to account for variations between different metal oxides of packing density, particle density and hygroscopicity, calibrations were performed both on the Lambda Doser individually and on the completed Powder Injection System. Three settings of particle mass were selected for each metal oxide and calibrated for airflow and doser speed. Laboratory calibration results along with field results will be presented.