X-Ray Visualization Measurement of Slurry Flow in Solid Propellant Casting.

Simulated solid propellant slurry containing lead sphere tracers is experimentally cast into a double circular cylinder container. During the casting, the temperature and the pressure environment has been mimicked to an actual composite solid propellant casting of solid rocket motors. X-rays are projected on to the slurry flow from two directions and penetration images are recorded by a flat panel detector and an X-ray image intensifier. By suppressing the mutual interference of the X-rays, the two-directional X-ray photography has been successfully conducted. Using the time series data of the X-ray images from the two directions, the identification of each tracer particle in space and time has been done and their three-dimensional paths have been computed. From these procedures, the flow field or the velocity field inside the slurry flow, which is invisible usually, has been estimated. © 2007 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]