Tungsten Copper Throat Insert

Solid rocket motor spray tube by controlling the expansion of the combustion chamber exhaust gas generated energy is efficiently converted to kinetic energy, so as to provide the required power for the aircraft. Throat insert located in the larynx of the spray tube, which plays an important role in restricting the throat area expansion by ablations and the decreases of the thrust. Throat insert usually need to be heated from room temperature to more than 2000℃  and produces a great temperature gradient and thermal stress when the engine working, which is also the main reason for the cracks and failure of throat insert materials. Furthermore, such high-performance engine for rocket often uses metal powders (such as Al) as propellants combustion at high temperature of about 3000 ℃ high burning rate entrained flow of solid particles or liquid droplets (Al2O3) and scoured the throat insert intensely. It is difficult to ensure a stable aerodynamic shape even the fragmentation occurred if the throat insert has severe ablation, so it will has an bad effect on the thrust and efficiency of the engine.

With the application of throat insert becoming wider and wider, such as rocket boosters, long-range missiles, solid rocket engine and so on, and the more and more types of the metal additives, the materials properties for throat insert has been confronted with the higher requirements, which is also a key to the solid rocket technology developments. In general, throat insert materials used for solid rocket engine include refractory metal, graphite, carbon and carbon-based composite material, reinforced plastics and ceramic-based composite materials, etc. Among them, tungsten copper is one of the very suitable materials for throat insert fabricating. In addition, throat insert heat conduction can be divided into three steps: 1.Engine ignition instant impact heating; 2. Ablation when working steady; 3. The cooling process of flameout; wherein the thermal shock of throat insert often occurs at the moment of the ignition.

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