Combustion of boron-based slurries in a ramburner

In a combustion chamber which was equipped with windows, boron and boron alloy slurries were burnt. The fraction of the solids in these mixtures was 25%. For the quantitative analysis of the reaction products three spectrometer systems were used. An optical multichannel analyzer for the range .2 to .9 Mym, an acusto-optical tunable IRfilter for the range 1.2 - 2.4 Mym and rotating IR-filters covering the range from 2.5 to 14.5 Mym.The determination of the gas phase temperature of the exhaust plume was obtained by evaluation of the OH rotation bands. The particle temperature was measured with a fast two-color pyrometer.During the burning process of boron with an average particle size of 2 Mym, only a weak background radiation was detected. Mg and AlB2 produced a greater amount of particles in the exhaust due to their particle size of about 50 Mym.The spectra of the exhaust plume show typical bands for the particular metals and the combustion products of the JET Al fuel.As described earl ier /1/, particle size distribution, surface characteristics and temperature are important parameters for the ignition and combustion of solids. Also the flow field inside the combustion chamber influences the burning behaviour of the solid particles. We therefore injected the slurries against the main flow direction to produce high turbulence.