Two samples were prepared from the same batch of recrystallized
KN/sucrose, the red sample has 1% Fe2O3 kneaded in.
(I also kneaded the white propellant the same amount
to make sure this did not contribute to any differences.)
Click Here for a video of this test.
(Beware - this is a 5 meg download for 15 seconds
of fire and smoke, and you won't even get to smell it.)
In case you have slow internet access, here is the gist of it.
Each of the frames below represents one second of video.
The pictures lie a bit, making it look like the red strand burned over twice as fast as the white one, but there is a missing piece: I fumbled the hot nail when igniting the strands, and accidentally lit the red one first, the white one a second later.
The precise burn times were 5.92 seconds for the red strand, 11.25 seconds
for the white one.
Thus the catalyzed KN/sucrose burned at 1.8 times the rate of the uncatalyzed
propellant.
Now this is at one atmosphere. I am sure things will be different at pressure. How different? I plan to find out tomorrow - there is some propellant heating up in the toaster-oven right now to make into grains for static testing.
Hopefully, the video of these tests will be precise enough to detect any differences in burn-time between catalyzed and uncatalyzed propellant. I expect the difference to be modest, but perhaps significant enough to be of some use.
Jimmy Yawn
jyawn@sfcc.net
4/27/02