Armadillo Aerospace News: Hot preheat mixture, E-Beam foam, self-preheat

We performed a number of interrelated experiments in the last week. A lot of experience was gained, but we don’t have a clear win yet.
A general problem that we have had through all of our work with the mixed monoprop solutions has been ensuring a complete preheat of the catalyst. Passing a calibrated air / propane mixture through the catalyst will bring it up to a fixed temperature, but only if the reaction is started by heating part of the catalyst up to the temperature where propane begins to catalytically burn. We had been doing this by the unreliable method of sticking a torch up the nozzle until we got at least part of it red hot, then turning on the air / propane flow to let it bring the entire pack up to our target temperature of around 1600 – 1800 f. Read More