Flame propagation in a composite solid energetic material

There is a growing interest in developing the micro and nanosized systems supporting the propagation of reaction waves for the needs of micropower generation and propulsion. Here we consider a thermal-diffusional model for composite energetic materials of the shell-core type which describes the propagation of combustion waves in such media of both nano and macroscopic sizes. It is demonstrated that by proper material design it is possible to substantially enhance the rate of combustion waves propagation and their stability. For macroscopic systems this opens possibilities for synthesis of new materials and creating new types of propulsion systems. For nanoscale systems we have found that the model substantially underpredicts the propagation velocities obtained in experiments thus implying that there are alternative ways for thermal energy transfer on such scales requiring further investigation. (C) 2014 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.