Modeling and Simulation of Heterogeneous Propellant Combustion to Investigate the Influence on Gun Performance

Objectives in developing gun propellants are, e.g., increasing the gunsystem performance, reducing the gun barrel erosion, or reducing the muzzle flash. 3D printing1,2,3,4,5 offers new and innovative possibilities for these purposes due to the great freedom in gun propellant design. These objectives can be achieved using heterogeneously structured propellant grains. This work presents a model to simulate the combustion of macroscopic heterogeneously structured gun propellant grains in closed vessels. The model is used to simulate a homogeneous and heterogeneously structured ball propellant.