Simulations of Slumping Propellant and Flexing Inhibitors in Solid Rocket Motors

* Technical Program Manager † Research Programmer ‡ Visiting Scholar § Research Scientist ¶ Associate Professor of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign # Postdoctoral Research Associate ** Senior Research Scientist Copyright  2002 by Center for Simulation of Advanced Rockets. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., with permission. Abstract We describe and present results from GEN2, the second-generation three-dimensional solid rocket motor simulation package developed at CSAR. The internal gas dynamics, propellant combustion, and structural response are fully coupled. In addition to several test cases, we simulate propellant slumping at a joint slot due to uneven gas pressure loads in the Titan IV SRMU. We also study the motion of a flexible inhibitor and its effect on the gas flow near a joint slot in a section of a typical large solid rocket motor.