Fire and Blast Hazards from Meteoroid Penetration
Fire and flash hazards from meteoroid penetration of space cabin
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Fire and flash hazards from meteoroid penetration of space cabin
RP-1 rocket fuel liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen-liquid oxygen combination explosion hazard
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Explosive proclivities of composite propellants related to dynamic mechanical properties
Detonation products expansion in vacuum, measuring gas flow speeds and pressure profiles far from charge
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The reported investigation has been conducted in connection with studies concerning the development of a propulsion system based on the use of a detonating fluid propellant. Measurements have been made of the pressure and shock wave velocity in a conical nozzle at various ambient pressures and at an ambient temperature of 25 C. In the experiments a small amount of explosive was placed at the end wall of a conical aluminum nozzle and detonated by a microdetonator inside the nozzle. Differences regarding the characteristics of conventional chemical propulsion and detonation propulsion are illustrated with the aid of a graph. One- and two-dimensional numerical flow calculations were performed and compared with the experimental data.
The Eulerian computer code DORF was used in the analysis of a two-dimensional, unsteady flow field resulting from semi-confined explosions for propulsive applications. Initially, the ambient gas inside the conical shaped nozzle is set into motion due to the expansion of the explosion product gas, forming a shock wave. When this shock front exits the nozzle, it takes almost a spherical form while a complex interaction between the nozzle and compression and rarefaction waves takes place behind the shock. The results show an excellent agreement with experimental data.
The calculation results for the total energy delivered to the surroundings by the burst of an idealized massless sphere containing an ideal gas are presented. The logic development of various formulas for sphere energy is also presented. For all types of sphere bursts the fraction of the total initial energy available in the sphere that is delivered to the surroundings is shown to lie between that delivered for the constant pressure addition of energy to a source region and that delivered by isentropic expansion of the sphere. The relative value of E sub/Q increases at fixed sphere pressure/surrounding pressure as sphere temperature increases because the velocity of sound increases.
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When a point source explosion is initiated at the ocean surface, the shock propagated into the water is reflected at the surface as a centered expansion wave. The solution in the neighborhood of the interaction point is obtained by writing the equations of motion in the appropriate similarity variables and then changing the independent variables to polar coordinates based at the interaction point. From the zero-order solution of the resulting equations the slopes of boundaries at the interaction point are obtained. A first-order perturbation of this solution provides more accurate representation of the flow variables and the curvature of the shock surface near the interaction point.
Development in the modeling and simulation of shock and vibration phenomena are considered. Predicting the noise exposure of payloads in the space shuttle, prediction for step-stress fatigue, pyrotechnique shock simulation using metal-to-metal impact, and prediction of fragment velocities and trajectories are among the topics covered.
(Previously announced in STAR as N82-19962)
Supernova remnants are experimentally simulated by irradiating spherical targets with eight-beam carbon dioxide laser in a chamber containing finite amounts of neutral gas, the gas being ionized by radiation from the hot target. The expansion velocities of the target plasmas are approximately the same as the expansion velocities of supernova ejecta and the experiment is successfully scaled to the case of a supernova remnant in an unmagnetized, low-density, interstellar medium. No sweep-up of the ambient plasma is detected, indicating that no hydrodynamic shock wave is formed to couple the target ejecta to the ambient gas. The experiment implies that if supernova ejecta couple to the interstellar medium, magnetic-field effects may be crucial to the physical description.
The suggestion that the soft X-ray background arises in part from the Sun which is inside a large supernova blastwave was examined by models of spherical blastwaves. The models can produce quantitative fits to both surface brightnesses and energy band ratios when t = 10 to the 5th power E sub o = 5 x 10 to the 50th power ergs, and n sub approx. 0.004 cm to the -3 power. The models are generalized by varying the relative importance of factors such as thermal conduction, Coulomb heating of electrons, and external pressure; and to allow the explosions to occur in preexisting cavities with steep density gradients, or by examination of the effects of large obstructions or other anisotrophies in the ambient medium.
It is argued that cosmic explosions could have produced significant amounts of large-scale structure in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Observations appear to indicate the presence of bubblelike structures with radii suggesting that positive energy perturbations were more prevalent than negative energy perturbations, since the latter would produce a prevalence of clusterlke irregularities. Energy input from processes occurring during galaxy formation and releasing about 10 to the 61st-62nd ergs per event would not overly disturb the CMB. The merging of bubbles typically resulting in bubbles with radii of roughly (10-20)/h x Mpc also would not affect the CMB. If much larger bubbles of radii 50-100 Mpc exist, a different energy input is likely to be the cause.
Design of nozzle reduces erosion of orifice by turbulent high-pressure water flowing through it. Improved performance and resistance to erosion achieved by giving interior nozzle surface long, gradual convergence before exit orifice abrupt divergence after orifice and by machining surface to smooth finish.