Instabilities and pressure oscillations in solid rocket motors

The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the main results obtained on instabilities and pressure oscillations in segmented solid rocket motors. A major part of this work was carried out in the framework of the ASSM and POP R&T programs supported by the French national space agency CNES during the last decade. ASSM is related to Aerodynamics of Segmented Solid Motors and POP for Pressure Oscillations Program for the Ariane 5 solid booster (P230). Due to the use of segmented technology for the P230 motor and the possible acoustic oscillations inside the motor chamber, anticipated at the beginning of the programs and confirmed later on static firing tests, the main scientific objective of the ASSM program was oriented towards the comprehension and the modeling of the vortex shedding phenomena that are supposed to be responsible of the pressure and thrust oscillations observed in the P230. POP program was started in order to obtain an experimental and numerical data base using subscale tests of 1/15th of the P230. After the description of the instabilities observed in the P230 solid rocket booster, the scientific approach of the ASSM program is detailed insisting on the validation of numerical tools in order to predict oscillation frequencies and amplitudes. The logic of work regarding POP program is also presented. The main section of this paper provides an overview of different results obtained in ASSM and POP programs to understand the mechanisms driving to the instabilities in solid rocket chamber. The most important recent result, inside ASSM and POP programs, was the discovery of the parietal vortex shedding and the role of aluminum combustion on instabilities. Together, these two mechanisms seem to be an important potential source of instabilities and provide a new vision of the P230 stability. (C) 2002 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.