Measurement of burning velocity for bare strand casted with a frozen mixture of nano/micro-aluminum particles and water

Combustion characteristics of a mixture of nano- and micron-sized aluminum powder in ice were experimentally studied. Round barshaped bare strand was casted with a frozen mixture of aluminum and water and then electrically ignited in the air or argon environment. Propagating flame was recorded using a camcorder with an optical filter. Burning rate, defined as the slope in the graph of average flame position movement versus time, was also evaluated. The burning velocity peaked at equivalence ratio of 0.8. Flame propagation velocity increased with a pressure exponent of 0.61 for = 0.8 and pressure range of 0.1-0.8 MPa. For nano/micro-mixture at = 0.8, flame propagation was not feasible if the mass fraction of micron-sized particles in fuel is higher than 0.5.