Evaluation of a High‐Performance Monopropellant Formed of Microencapsulated Hydrocarbon Fuels in Combination With Gelled Hydrogen Peroxide in a Strand Burner Setup

ABSTRACT A dispersion of hydrocarbon‐fuel‐filled microcapsules in gelled hydrogen peroxide can form a premixed monopropellant from typical bipropellant components, combining the high specific impulse of a bipropellant with the efficient hardware of a monopropellant. In this work, a first study on the combustion behavior of this propellant was performed, using a strand burner setup. Various propellant parameters like the oxidizer to fuel ratio, capsule diameter, hydrogen peroxide concentration, and chain‐length of the fuel were varied, and their influence on the burn rate was investigated. Furthermore, the pressure dependency of the propellant and the use of catalysts as an alternative ignition method were investigated. These results provide valuable insights into the combustion behavior of this propellant and enable future work towards hot fire tests.