Investigation of aluminum droplet combustion in solid propellant flames: Al-PLIF experiments and numerical simulation

Aluminum-droplet combustion is studied in solid-propellant flame environment at 1.0 MPa. Al vapor is observed during the combustion process with high-speed Al-PLIF and visible-emission images. A onedimensional quasi-steady model of aluminum combustion is used to simulate Al-atom concentration and temperature profiles around the droplet. Al-PLIF image simulation has been developed to generate synthetic fluorescence images that reproduce the experimental images. A comparison approach is initiated between experimental and numerical Al-PLIF images and applied to the study of a specific droplet observed during the experiments with a diameter larger than 120 µm. A reasonable consistency is observed between simulated and experimental data, which is promising to provide validation data for the development of more representative aluminum-combustion models.