Question for Scott Lowther

(This has got to qualify for geek question of the week)

In the Book "Valkyire - North American's Mach 3 Superbomber" it says
in regard to the AIM-47 that the original motor the XM59 would have
been able to accelerate the missile to Mach 6 but the one actually
used the XSR13-LP-1 could only get it to Mach 4. In Chapter 3
footnote 86 it gives you credit for chasing down the designation for
the XSR13-LP-1. My question is do you by chance know what kind of
fuel the XSR13-LP-1 used and what kind the XM59 used that would give
it such a large increase in performance?


Thanks.

D. Scott Ferrin wrote:
(This has got to qualify for geek question of the week)

In the Book "Valkyire - North American's Mach 3 Superbomber" it says
in regard to the AIM-47 that the original motor the XM59 would have
been able to accelerate the missile to Mach 6 but the one actually
used the XSR13-LP-1 could only get it to Mach 4. In Chapter 3
footnote 86 it gives you credit for chasing down the designation for
the XSR13-LP-1. My question is do you by chance know what kind of
fuel the XSR13-LP-1 used and what kind the XM59 used that would give
it such a large increase in performance?


Thanks.


NASA has some PDF B-70 documents on its NTRS webserver:



B-70 Aircraft Study - Final Report - Vol. 1 - April 1972
Data location matrix, Work breakdown structure,
Cost data definitions, B-70 program summary costs.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1995102358.pdf



B-70 Aircraft Study - Final Report - Vol. 2 - April 1972
Air vehicle, program technical spoort, major airframe mating,
flight test, flight test ground support equipment, spares,
special test equipment, tooling, other program elements.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1995102359.pdf



B-70 Aircraft Study - Final Report - Vol. 3 - April 1972
Airframe structures, environmental control, propulsion, secondary
power.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1995102360.pdf



B-70 Aircraft Study - Final Report - Vol. 4 - April 1972
Air induction system, flight control, personnel accommodation and
escape,
alighting and arresting, mission and traffic control, flight
indication,
test instrumentation, installation, checkout & pre-flight.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1995102361.pdf



A summary of XB-70 sonic boom signature data - April 1992

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1992015557.pdf




Wind-tunnel/flight correlation study of aerodynamic characteristics of
a large flexible supersonic cruise airplane (XB-70-1)

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1980009724.pdf




SUMMARY OF PRELIMINARY DATA DERIVED FROM THE XB-70 AIRPLANES - June
1966

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1966018723.pdf



ANALYSIS OF AN EMERGENCY DECELERATION AND DESCENT OF THE XB-70-1
AIRPLANE DUE TO ENGINE DAMAGE RESULTING FROM STRUCTURAL FAILURE - March
1966

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1966011810.pdf




Rusty

D. Scott Ferrin wrote:

(This has got to qualify for geek question of the week)

In the Book "Valkyire - North American's Mach 3 Superbomber" it says
in regard to the AIM-47 that the original motor the XM59 would have
been able to accelerate the missile to Mach 6 but the one actually
used the XSR13-LP-1 could only get it to Mach 4. In Chapter 3
footnote 86 it gives you credit for chasing down the designation for
the XSR13-LP-1.

I got creditted? Woo! I forgot I'd helped 'em with that.

My question is do you by chance know what kind of
fuel the XSR13-LP-1 used and what kind the XM59 used that would give
it such a large increase in performance?


Not anymore, no. The reference I had available to me at that time is
available to me no longer (from the library of a company I no longer
work for).

As for what would increase the performance... could have been propellant
formulation, could also have been grain geometry. If you redesign the
grain, but keep the propellant the same, you can boost thrust, at
expense of duration.

On Wed, 06 Apr 2005 23:45:31 GMT, Scott Lowther
wrote:

D. Scott Ferrin wrote:

(This has got to qualify for geek question of the week)

In the Book "Valkyire - North American's Mach 3 Superbomber" it says
in regard to the AIM-47 that the original motor the XM59 would have
been able to accelerate the missile to Mach 6 but the one actually
used the XSR13-LP-1 could only get it to Mach 4. In Chapter 3
footnote 86 it gives you credit for chasing down the designation for
the XSR13-LP-1.

I got creditted? Woo! I forgot I'd helped 'em with that.

My question is do you by chance know what kind of
fuel the XSR13-LP-1 used and what kind the XM59 used that would give
it such a large increase in performance?


Not anymore, no. The reference I had available to me at that time is
available to me no longer (from the library of a company I no longer
work for).

As for what would increase the performance... could have been propellant
formulation, could also have been grain geometry. If you redesign the
grain, but keep the propellant the same, you can boost thrust, at
expense of duration.


The way it reads it sounds like it was the propellant formulation
which was why I was wondering about it.

D. Scott Ferrin wrote:

On Wed, 06 Apr 2005 23:45:31 GMT, Scott Lowther
wrote:



D. Scott Ferrin wrote:



(This has got to qualify for geek question of the week)

In the Book "Valkyire - North American's Mach 3 Superbomber" it says
in regard to the AIM-47 that the original motor the XM59 would have
been able to accelerate the missile to Mach 6 but the one actually
used the XSR13-LP-1 could only get it to Mach 4. In Chapter 3
footnote 86 it gives you credit for chasing down the designation for
the XSR13-LP-1.



I got creditted? Woo! I forgot I'd helped 'em with that.



My question is do you by chance know what kind of
fuel the XSR13-LP-1 used and what kind the XM59 used that would give
it such a large increase in performance?



Not anymore, no. The reference I had available to me at that time is
available to me no longer (from the library of a company I no longer
work for).

As for what would increase the performance... could have been propellant
formulation, could also have been grain geometry. If you redesign the
grain, but keep the propellant the same, you can boost thrust, at
expense of duration.




The way it reads it sounds like it was the propellant formulation
which was why I was wondering about it.


Well, that being the late '50's, early '60's, there were a hell of a lot
of developments in solid propellants. The specifics were, of course,
generally classified, and not a lot tend to get published about 'em.
Your standard propellants burn at 0.25-0.5 inches per second at aroudn a
thousand psi (shuttle standard is 0.368); but they foudn ways to really
jack up burn rate. Sprint proellant got to 11 inches a second, and HiBEX
to around 20; these were bat-outta-Hell motors. Fastest I've heard of
was over 50 inches per second burn rate, and that was jsut before the
test motor blew itself to hell and gone. Burn rate is to first order NOT
a function of grain geometry, but of pressure and formulation.

Well, that being the late '50's, early '60's, there were a hell of a lot
of developments in solid propellants. The specifics were, of course,
generally classified, and not a lot tend to get published about 'em.
Your standard propellants burn at 0.25-0.5 inches per second at aroudn a
thousand psi (shuttle standard is 0.368); but they foudn ways to really
jack up burn rate. Sprint proellant got to 11 inches a second, and HiBEX
to around 20; these were bat-outta-Hell motors. Fastest I've heard of
was over 50 inches per second burn rate, and that was jsut before the
test motor blew itself to hell and gone. Burn rate is to first order NOT
a function of grain geometry, but of pressure and formulation.


It's the formulation that I'm curious about. I always wondered how
they burned all the propellant in the 1st stage of Sprint so fast.
The only drawing I've seen of the grain had a lot of area burning at
once but still to smoke it all in a second and a half. . . I know
burn rate and ISP don't necessarily go hand in hand and I wonder how
the fuel Sprint and HIBEX compared to something like NH4ClO4/AL/HTPB.
I've got Sutton's Rocket Propulsion Elements, 7th Edition and various
publications dealing with making propellant in high powered rocketry
but I get the feeling that the REALLY interesting stuff is proprietary
information at various companies.

D. Scott Ferrin wrote:

Well, that being the late '50's, early '60's, there were a hell of a lot
of developments in solid propellants. The specifics were, of course,
generally classified, and not a lot tend to get published about 'em.
Your standard propellants burn at 0.25-0.5 inches per second at aroudn a
thousand psi (shuttle standard is 0.368); but they foudn ways to really
jack up burn rate. Sprint proellant got to 11 inches a second, and HiBEX
to around 20; these were bat-outta-Hell motors. Fastest I've heard of
was over 50 inches per second burn rate, and that was jsut before the
test motor blew itself to hell and gone. Burn rate is to first order NOT
a function of grain geometry, but of pressure and formulation.




It's the formulation that I'm curious about. I always wondered how
they burned all the propellant in the 1st stage of Sprint so fast.
The only drawing I've seen of the grain had a lot of area burning at
once but still to smoke it all in a second and a half. . . I know
burn rate and ISP don't necessarily go hand in hand and I wonder how
the fuel Sprint and HIBEX compared to something like NH4ClO4/AL/HTPB.
I've got Sutton's Rocket Propulsion Elements, 7th Edition and various
publications dealing with making propellant in high powered rocketry
but I get the feeling that the REALLY interesting stuff is proprietary
information at various companies.


When I worked at UTC in San Jose, one of the chemists was an old
rocketeer who worked on Sprint. Most propelalnts are mixed and poured.
Sprint propellant was *built*. It was a double-base propellant composed
of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin, which is common enough, but it also
had some interesting additives. The most important were the staples. The
propellant was built within the motor; usign early manufacturing
robotics; a robot woudl reach in, and lay down a layer of powered fuel;
andother robot woudl then reach in and lay down a layer of staples.
Stories differed (meanign different test motor configurations)... in
some, the staples were zirconium strips, in others (and, I believe, the
production motors), the staples were 3-d bent aluminum staples
(descriebd to me as looking precisely liek a regular staple, but with
one leg bent so that all three axes were represented). In any case,
after the staples, the first robot woudlr each in again, and lay down
another layer of powder, and the process woudl repeat. After all the
propellant was in, nitroglycerin was carefully poured in; it woudl
filter through the powder, dissolve the nitrocellulose, and the staples
woudl stay pretty much in place. There were assuredly other additives as
well.

The purpose of the staples was to speed up heat conduction through the
propellant. Propellant burns at a faster rate if the bulk propellant
temperature is higher... a rocket burns noticabel faster on a summer day
than winter, frex. But the burn rate of most propellants is about as
fast, or faster than, the speed of thermal conduction through the
propellant... so even though it's 4000 degrees just a fraction of an
inch off the surface, just a fraction of an inch below the surface, it's
a warm day. But the staples mean the interior of the propellant heat up
at the thermal conduction speed of the metal, not the proepllant. Done
right, it's damendd near a barely-controlled explosion. Sometimes, not
so controlled...

On Fri, 08 Apr 2005 01:55:15 GMT, Scott Lowther
wrote:

D. Scott Ferrin wrote:

Well, that being the late '50's, early '60's, there were a hell of a lot
of developments in solid propellants. The specifics were, of course,
generally classified, and not a lot tend to get published about 'em.
Your standard propellants burn at 0.25-0.5 inches per second at aroudn a
thousand psi (shuttle standard is 0.368); but they foudn ways to really
jack up burn rate. Sprint proellant got to 11 inches a second, and HiBEX
to around 20; these were bat-outta-Hell motors. Fastest I've heard of
was over 50 inches per second burn rate, and that was jsut before the
test motor blew itself to hell and gone. Burn rate is to first order NOT
a function of grain geometry, but of pressure and formulation.




It's the formulation that I'm curious about. I always wondered how
they burned all the propellant in the 1st stage of Sprint so fast.
The only drawing I've seen of the grain had a lot of area burning at
once but still to smoke it all in a second and a half. . . I know
burn rate and ISP don't necessarily go hand in hand and I wonder how
the fuel Sprint and HIBEX compared to something like NH4ClO4/AL/HTPB.
I've got Sutton's Rocket Propulsion Elements, 7th Edition and various
publications dealing with making propellant in high powered rocketry
but I get the feeling that the REALLY interesting stuff is proprietary
information at various companies.


When I worked at UTC in San Jose, one of the chemists was an old
rocketeer who worked on Sprint. Most propelalnts are mixed and poured.
Sprint propellant was *built*. It was a double-base propellant composed
of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin, which is common enough, but it also
had some interesting additives. The most important were the staples. The
propellant was built within the motor; usign early manufacturing
robotics; a robot woudl reach in, and lay down a layer of powered fuel;
andother robot woudl then reach in and lay down a layer of staples.
Stories differed (meanign different test motor configurations)... in
some, the staples were zirconium strips, in others (and, I believe, the
production motors), the staples were 3-d bent aluminum staples
(descriebd to me as looking precisely liek a regular staple, but with
one leg bent so that all three axes were represented). In any case,
after the staples, the first robot woudlr each in again, and lay down
another layer of powder, and the process woudl repeat. After all the
propellant was in, nitroglycerin was carefully poured in; it woudl
filter through the powder, dissolve the nitrocellulose, and the staples
woudl stay pretty much in place. There were assuredly other additives as
well.

The purpose of the staples was to speed up heat conduction through the
propellant. Propellant burns at a faster rate if the bulk propellant
temperature is higher... a rocket burns noticabel faster on a summer day
than winter, frex. But the burn rate of most propellants is about as
fast, or faster than, the speed of thermal conduction through the
propellant... so even though it's 4000 degrees just a fraction of an
inch off the surface, just a fraction of an inch below the surface, it's
a warm day. But the staples mean the interior of the propellant heat up
at the thermal conduction speed of the metal, not the proepllant. Done
right, it's damendd near a barely-controlled explosion. Sometimes, not
so controlled...


Yeah that book I mentioned above talks about wires and staples to
increase the burn rate too and it mentioned several metals including
aluminum, silver, and zirconium. It left me wondering if it were just
the conduction of the heat into the unburned propellent that increased
the burn rate or if the burning surface was able to travel along the
staple/propellent interface into the propellent with the net effect
being a somewhat increased surface area burning.

D. Scott Ferrin wrote:


Yeah that book I mentioned above talks about wires and staples to
increase the burn rate too and it mentioned several metals including
aluminum, silver, and zirconium. It left me wondering if it were just
the conduction of the heat into the unburned propellent that increased
the burn rate or if the burning surface was able to travel along the
staple/propellent interface into the propellent with the net effect
being a somewhat increased surface area burning.


That is almost certainly an effect as well. Plus, zirconium goes
absolutely ape in the presense of a hot oxidizer.

Scott Lowther wrote:
zirconium goes absolutely ape [..]

You know, between this ("absolutely ape") and Mary's "sticky-outy bit"
s.s.h. has become a treasure-trove of new technical terminology to me. ;-)