Characterization of solid propellants by damped combustion oscillations

The linearized Denison–Baum solid propellant combustion model is characterized by two parameters (α, A). Over a large portion of the α, A space for which stable combustion is predicted, the return of a perturbed burning rate to the steady state takes the path of damped oscillations. This paper provides explicit analytical expressions for α and A in terms of the frequency and attenuation rate of these oscillations, which can be measured directly. This provides a previously unexploited rout toward the evaluation of the acoustic admittance, which the model had previously expressed in terms of α and A.