Combustion of PMMA in Liquid Oxygen Flow

Our previous study showed that although the hybrid rocket engine with swirling gaseous oxygen had high performance, a direct injection of LOX with swirl into the combustion chamber of the hybrid rocket engine lowered the performance of the engine, compared to that with gaseous oxygen. In order to clarify this reason, combustion tests of a small PMMA combustor with an inner port diameter of 2 mm were conducted in liquid oxygen flow by comparison with gaseous oxygen flow. Although the oxygen mass fluxes of LOX were about two orders of magnitude larger than those of gaseous oxygen, the fuel regression rate of LOX were remarkably smaller than those of gaseous oxygen. For both liquid and gaseous oxygen, diffusion flames in the port of the grain controlled the combustion process of PMMA in oxygen flow. These results may be explained by the fact that only small amount of LOX vaporized and consumed in the combustion with PMMA while flowing through the port due to relatively larger latent heat of injected liquid oxygen compared to the heat of release by combustion which depended on the burning surface area of PMMA.