Gelled fuels: Luminal-A, Alumizin, etc

[JetPropulsion]

Michel Van:
"One Moment Luminal-A ?
was Glusko also in Alumizine propellant ?!"
Right, luminal-a is soviet analog of american alumizine.
Some theoretical works was conducted at OKB-456 (chief designer V. P. Glushko; today NPO "Energomash"), then conducted some static fire tests. OKB-456 has concluded that it is unreasonable to use this fuel (we'll get back to that question).
At USSR was conducted a lot of works with luminal-a at OKB-2 (chief designer Isaev; today KBHM - design bureau of chemical machine building), SKB-385 (today State rocket center), etc.

"Idea was to increase combustion temperature by aluminum oxide"
So... You are right: combustion temperature is increace if you are using fuel with metal. But if you compare specific impulse of "standard pair" (soviet termin, means nitrogen tetraoxide+UDMH) with nitrogen tetraoxide+luminal-a, you see, that difference is a few second.
All idea is in very high dencity of this propellant. So, USSR want to use it in sea-launched ballistic missile (need to reduce the size of the missiles to reduce the submarine size, noize and cost). USA want to use alumizine in Titan-IIA: more propellant in the same volume limited by the silo.

 

[Michel Van]

Eugen Sänger work on "Kerosol" mixture of aluminum + kerosin

at USA they work on Alumizine a mixture 46% aluminum with hydrazine and gelling agent.
USAF study it for ICBM propellant begin 1960s
End in 1960s were allot study to use this in pressure fed booster, mostly for NASA Space Shuttle
however Alumizine has issue with storage, so far know one Alumizine storage tank even exploded.

i reformulate the Question:
What Propellants has V. P. Glushko not tested?

 

[JetPropulsion]

so far know one Alumizine storage tank even exploded.

Interesting! Where we can read the details?

 

[JetPropulsion]

at USA they work on Alumizine a mixture 46% aluminum with hydrazine and gelling agent.

Variant of alumizine (book "ROCKET PROPELLANTS ACCORDING TO FOREIGN PRESS MATERIALS", Edited by Ya. M. Paushkin, A. Z. Chulkov. publishing house “Mir”: Moscow, 1975.)
One of the first hydrazine-based heterogeneous fuels, known as aluminizine, contains 66.5% hydrazine, 33% aluminum, and 0.5% modified polyacrylic acid. ... Some properties of this fuel are summarized in Table 2.

 

[JetPropulsion]

The stability of alumizine is maintained for about 5 years. It burned steadily in a serial liquid propellant rocket engine; no abrasion of fuel valve seats by the solid phase was observed during engine operation [38].
38. Space Aeronautics, 1964, 42, No. 4, pp. 39-43.

(book "ROCKET PROPELLANTS ACCORDING TO FOREIGN PRESS MATERIALS", Edited by Ya. M. Paushkin, A. Z. Chulkov. publishing house “Mir”: Moscow, 1975.)
It would be interesting to find this journal and read what it says. Based on similar notes in other sources, it appears that LR87 is what is meant in this case.

 

[Scott Kenny]

i reformulate the Question:
What Propellants has V. P. Glushko not tested?

Probably pentaborane and that one nasty thing with mercury and fluorine... (Due to chemical engineers being too sane to to want to touch those!)

 

[southwestforests]

If I was an author I'd want history to let me write a book or at least an article titled, "The Felled Jewels of Gelled Fuels."

 

[Michel Van]

Probably pentaborane and that one nasty thing with mercury and fluorine

He tested pentaborane with UDMH and Fluorine with Ammonia...

 

[Scott Kenny]

He tested pentaborane with UDMH and Fluorine with Ammonia...

Was not expecting anyone to have tested pentaborane, Ignition! says the prep to make it is a dog, even they skipped making it.

But the other one was some hideous tripropellant that gave you an exhaust of nice toxic mercury fluoride vapors, IIRC with a side order of hydrofluoric acid.

 

[Nik]

As said of mega-thrust earth-quakes, tsunamis and Plinian volcanic eruptions, 'BE NOT THERE'...

Is said you can identify volcanologists and tsunami specialists by the way they always park facing exit: No need to 'back & fill', just throw into gear and floor the gas...