Products from the combustion of solid propellants erode rocket nozzles, which adversely affects solid rocket motor performance.  Understanding the fundamental interactions between these product gases and the nozzle surface is critical to limiting rocket nozzle erosion.  To develop this knowledge, we are conducting experiments in the high-pressure single pulse shock tube at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  Through these experiments, we will determine the kinetics of the homogeneous and heterogeneous chemical reactions that contribute to erosion.  This information will be a critical element of an advanced theoretical model to describe rocket nozzle erosion at high-temperatures (> 3600 K) and pressures (8,000 – 10,000 psi) that will likely constitute the operating range of future missiles. 

The complex experimental details of conducting this research are the topic of this poster.  We will discuss building a particle injector modeled after a device at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and obtaining temperature measurements at high pressures.  Furthermore, we explain a technique to develop chemical kinetics from measurements of product gases.  This approach presents unique challenges because key species such as CO participate in multiple reactions as both product and reactant.  This information contributes valuably to techniques to study heterogeneous combustion in shock tubes.