College of Engineering

Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering

Facilities - Energetic Safety

Turbulent Flow Reactor

High-pressure windowed flow reactor for flammability limit study and explosion characteristics of premixed turbulent flames for industrial safety considerations

Airbag Inflators and Propellant-Actuated Devices

Multiple facilities and test rigs have developed and are available for research and characterization of gas-generating compositions and devices. Fundamental ignition, flame-spreading, and combustion behavior of propellants can be examined using the strand burner or special small-volume highly instrumented and/or windowed test chambers. An X-ray transparent chamber allows dynamic burning behavior (i.e., excursion from expected steady-state behavior for a particular pressure level) to be evaluated at realistic pressure and pressurization-rate (dP/dt) conditions. For device evaluation, a standard 60-L tank is available. Both nominal and off-nominal operating conditions can be examined to aid in system performance assessment or failure analysis.