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Article #7596Re: Aluminum as Rocket Fuel?
From: Henry Spencer
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:50
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:50
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In article <1993Jan11.200942.28571@pixar.com> loren@pixar.com (Loren Carpenter) writes:
>... It seems that an easy way to raise the ISP of a fuel is
>to preheat it. An exothermic reaction consumes some of its output in
>heating the unreacted material up to reaction temperature. So, liquid Al
>at 1000C ought to burn a bit hotter than solid Al at room temperature...
True only up to a point. For any fuel combination there's a limiting
temperature, where the reaction products start to decompose, and high-
performance rocket engines started reaching it long ago. One reason
(not the only one) why the SSMEs run quite hydrogen-rich, for example,
is that the flame wouldn't get much hotter with a leaner mix.
Given that an aluminum-oxygen rocket is going to have to run very
oxygen-rich for useful performance, though, it might help some.
--
"God willing... we shall return." | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
-Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
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Newsgroups: sci.space Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!utcsri!utzoo!henry From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Aluminum as Rocket Fuel? Message-ID: <C0rDvI.At@zoo.toronto.edu> Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:50:01 GMT References: <C0n6pG.7v4.1@cs.cmu.edu> <1993Jan11.200942.28571@pixar.com> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 17