Peculiarities of cellulose nitrate combustion in ballasted systems

Abstract

The dependence of the combustion parameters of cellulose nitrate (nitrocellulose, NC) mixtures with magnesium oxide on the content of the energetic component was studied to reveal peculiarities of the combustion of NC in ballasted systems. It is experimentally shown that the combustion occurs in the flameless low-temperature region at the NC content in a mixture with magnesium oxide lower than 60%, and the reactive smoke reaction products can be ignited by a secondary thermal igniter heated to the temperature higher than 770 K. For the NC content in the initial mixture higher than 60%, a critical increase in the combustion temperature and velocity is observed due to the ignition of the reactive smoke products of NC decomposition inside the sample. The combustion of NC in the flame and flameless regimes is characterized by an intermediate isothermal stage at the temperature about 440 K corresponding to the temperature of onset of the fast NC decomposition. Thus, ballasting of a power material with an inert filler makes it possible to reveal and characterize the spatial and time stage character of its thermal decomposition under the combustion conditions.