The combustion of colloidal propellants

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Abstract
Scientific treatment of the problems attendant on the combustion of colloidal propellants may be said to have originated with VIELLE.* Earlier, PIOBERT, in his study of the rate of burning of black powder, had formulated his well-known law of burning by parallel layers, and had further reached the conclusion that the rate of burning was independent of pressure variation during the explosion. Later experimenters with black powder, while accepting PIOBERT’s first law, recognised the dependence of the rate of burning on the pressure, the first attempt to formulate an expression connecting the rate with the pressure being due to DE SAINT-ROBERT, who gave the formula R == where p is a constant for the powder, and a = §. In course of time the index a experienced various modifications, being accorded valuesranging between J and 1 by different investigators.§ VIELLE reached the conclusion that the hypothesis of DE SAINT-ROBERT was, in general, not true for black powder : but that it could be taken to apply to colloidal explosives, such as gelatinised nitrocellulose, which possess a nearly homogeneous character. Experimenting with a variety of compositions he arrived at a value of a approximating to f, the value fluctuating slightly with the varying compositions used.

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