Large-Size Catalytic Bed Performance Study of Hybrid Rocket Motor Based on 98% Hydrogen Peroxide

This paper is aimed to study the performance of large-size catalytic bed for hybrid rocket motors based on 98% hydrogen peroxide (HP) through five catalytic tests. The large-size catalytic bed is 140 mm in diameter and adopts silver as the main catalyst. The tests results demonstrate that adopting silver as the main catalyst is an efficient way to catalyze 98HP. And the effects of oxidizer mass flow rate on catalytic delay time and catalytic bed pressure drop are also discovered. The catalytic delay time is negatively correlated with oxidizer mass flow rate, presenting an exponential function. And the difference between the inlet pressure of the catalytic bed and reaction chamber pressure is defined as the pressure drop of the catalyst bed. The pressure drop of the catalytic bed is linearly related to the oxidizer mass flow rate, and a linear fitting formula is obtained. Moreover, a reaction chamber and nozzle are designed to investigate characteristic velocity efficiency, which is equivalent to the efficiency of the catalytic bed. The catalytic bed efficiency is about 99.5% within the total catalytic tests time. It is concluded that this large-size catalytic bed has a high degree of stability and efficiency.