A Stochastic Pocket Model for Aluminum Agglomeration in Solid Propellants

Abstract A new model is derived to estimate the size and fraction of aluminum agglomerates at the surface of a burning propellant. The basic idea relies on well‐known pocket models in which aluminum is supposed to aggregate and melt within pocket volumes imposed by largest oxidizer particles. The proposed model essentially relaxes simple assumptions of previous pocket models on propellant structure by accounting for an actual microstructure obtained by packing. The use of statistical tools from stochastic geometry enables to determine a statistical pocket size volume and hence agglomerate diameter and agglomeration fraction. Application to several AP/Al propellants gives encouraging results that are shown to be superior to former pocket models.