Aluminium + oxygen rocket without N and H ?

A LOX and aluminum hybrid might work, especially if you find some substrate forthe aluminum.

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 07:53:27 -0800, Jerry Irvine is alleged to have written:

Until, of course, the grain self-anodized, forming a protective oxide layer over the pure aluminum underneath....

Or were you planning on using powdered aluminum? Or perhaps make a liquid aluminum and LOX rocket -- that would be something to see!

- Rick "Wants to see the turbopumps for molten Al" Dickinson

The poster specified solid so I already drifted offtopic, but it is possible to make an aluminum powder slurry and have a totally liquid motor that way.

It is pretty hard to beat AP so any way you can make rotary round ammonium perchlorate in this hypothetical resource lacking place, do it. AP rocks hard. I sense a science fiction author posting.

Sci-Fi or someone reading some science textbooks and concluding that burn temp and ejected mass equals good isp. His recipe of aluminum, magnesium and iron sounds like thermite with a LOX oxidixer. Looks great till you try to figure out the materials required to handle the burn temp and the manufacturing process.

If I remember right Hydrazine, RFNA and Acetlyene looked good on paper also.

Bob Ellis

Bob n Robin wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.teranews.com:

The other problem is that metal oxides tend to be "fluffy" (I think the technical term is flocculent, but that sounds vaguely obscene), and prone to clogging nozzle throats.

len.

The poster asked about a LOX and aluminum motor - so it wouldn't be a solid motor. Hybrid, maybe. :-)

John Wickman did some experiments some years ago (I don't know if it's ongoing - John...?) with a gelled mix of aluminum and oxygen. The idea was to develop a motor that could be fuelled from lunar materials. Since aluminum and oxygen are abundant in moonrocks, it seems to be a good choice.

amorphous?

You munged the attribution above. Those were all my words.

Actually this reply directly addresses the issue the original poster raised and is a good call Len.

Jerry

According to Jerry Irvine :

"flocculent" means, effectively, "small bits sticking together to make bigger bits" (pool owners should recognize that ;-). Which certain fits better than "without defined shape".

I should think that any combustion-product gas where the principle components has a high condensation temperature (aluminum oxide and iron certainly do) would be quite an engineering challenge as a rocket fuel.

Bystanders would get pelted with grains of synthetic sapphire too ;-).

But your reaction product is aluminum oxide, which doesn't appear as a gas in the exhaust...

-dave w

We'd have to wear corundum helmets. ;)

tim

No, but it does tend to accumulate on my sandpaper. ;)

tim

Same with the shuttle.

When aluminum is a fuel ingredient in a solid propellant mix, there's generally plenty of C, H, and N in various other ingredients, so there will be plenty of gaseous products to be heated and expanded by the heat of combustion of the aluminum.

-dave w

Do a PEP run and prove me wrong.

Key word on the hybrid "some substrate".

Key word on slurry aluminum is "slurry".

Merely Tech Jerry who refuses to post the answer to a site Iran can read.

Whoops...

They may be few and far-between... but I *do* have my moments. :-)

Rick Dickinson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

powdered Aluminum slurry? That would add H from the H2O,though. I don't know how one would ignite such a propellant.

I trained along Iranian officers while in the USAF in 1973, where they were learning to repair F-111's

wonder where they got F-111's ?

- ix

Jerry Irv> Merely Tech Jerry who refuses to post the answer to a site Iran can read.

Jim Yanik wrote in news:Xns9433DC6FB1BACjyanikkuanet@

Aerotech Copperhead?

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