Coaxial Combustion Cannon

Boom! The classic potato gun harnesses the combustion of flammable vapor. Show us your combustion spud gun and discuss fuels, ratios, safety, ignition systems, tools, and more.
space_weazel
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Mon Jan 02, 2012 10:58 pm

So some of you may have seen that I'm working on a new cannon, and I started to wonder if I could simplify the design a little by making a coaxial design combustion cannon, So I started running some numbers and here's the reults of some math in xcell.
Image
you can see in this that a 4" chamber with the barrel 1" off the back of the chamber and a chamber that is 4" in length and a barrel that is 1.5" in Diameter and 30" long gets close to a ratio of 0.7:1 ; which from the testing of 1.5" bore guns that 'jackssmirkingrevenge' posted over in my other thread, seems to yield maximum velocity.
However I could construct a more compact gun with potentially a slightly larger chamber and get close to 1:1 most anything in the green zone.

Thoughts?

Also has there been any testing on detonation doing a coaxial design in a combustion gun? If so can someone point me to the results?

Thanks
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Technician1002
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Mon Jan 02, 2012 11:48 pm

One item often overlooked on combustion cannons is the distance from the gas mass to the nearest cold wall. Placing a coaxial pipe in the center of the chamber provides a short thermal path to a cool surface resulting in a more rapid cooling of the combustion gas. This will impact performance in addition to the CB ratio. Chamber surface area is best when it is a low value so combution heat and resulting pressure rise remain longer.

Sealed combustion chamber pressure testing has shown the thermal decay is quite rapid in a chamber after combustion.
space_weazel
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Tue Jan 03, 2012 9:12 pm

So I would want a larger volume (i.e. more fuel) to compensate for the cooling effect?
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