Application of Specific Impulse Formula

In order to apply Eq. (1), it is necessary to establish the identities and amounts of the various gaseous products and to determine the combustiou temperature. 

Depending upon the composition of the propellant, the major components of the gaseous products may include CO, CO2, N2, H2O, or HF, with lesser quantities of other molecules and radicals such as H2, NO, H, 0, CHO, and N2O. The proportions and consequently amounts of these various possible products depend upon the stoichiometry of the combustion process plus the effects of whatever other equilibria and/or dissociations may be occurring such as the water-gas reaction 

We use a program obtained from the Naval Weapons Center [3] to predict which products will be formed and in what quantities these predictions ate based upon quantitative estimates of the extents of these various reactions, using data such as equilibrium constants. 

A simple approach to obtaining a rough approximation of the combustion temperature involves assuming that the heat of combustion of the pro-pel t is used entirely to heat the product gases to the combustion tern-peratoie, so that 

We have calculated the specific impulses of a large number of molecules using Eq. (1) in the manner described in the previous section. To facilitate comparisons, our values are given relative to that of HMX (I 1.3,5.7-tetranitro-l,3,5,7-tetraazacyclooctane). The results of some of these calculations are given in Tables I-III. Table I lists compounds with csdculated 

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