Performance Evaluation of a High-Performance Monopropellant Formed of Microencapsulated Hydrocarbon Fuels in Combination with Hydrogen Peroxide in a Strand Burner Setup

Abstract

A new type of monopropellant, consisting of fuel-filled microcapsules in combination with hydrogen peroxide as oxidizer, combining the high specific impulse of a bipropellant with the efficient hardware of a monopropellant, has been developed by our group over the past few years. In this work, a first study on the combustion behavior of this propellant was performed, using a strand burner setup. The influence of different propellant parameters (oxidizer to fuel ratio, capsule diameter, hydrogen peroxide concentration and pressure dependency) on the burn rate was evaluated, in order to further develop this system for future hot-fire tests.