A gasdynamic model for regenerative liquid propellant guns.

Liquid propellant guns are considered to be one of the future propulsion systems. Up to now there does not exist any type of such a propulsion system ready for immediate fielding. However, several projects have been initiated for studying its realization. These studies include both theoretical and experimental basic research with respect to essential processes of the propulsion dynamics as well as proposals for its design. This paper contributes to the theoretical investigations of a regenerative propulsion system. A two-chamber system is described where one chamber contains the liquid and the other one represents the combustion chamber and the flow area of the propelling liquid-gas mixture. Both chambers are separated by a piston. The code describes the propulsion flow behind the projectile as a two-dimensional axisymmetric two-phase flow whereas the liquid propellant reservoir is supposed to be a time-dependent constant state region. All essential features of the model are presented and discussed. Complementary numerical results show that this novel code may be a powerful tool for studying such complex propulsion systems. (-z-)