ORCID

0009-0005-2721-8477

Keywords

metal oxidation, oxide condensation, light emission, detonation, combustion

Abstract

Aluminum is an attractive fuel due to its ability to enhance combustion characteristics in a wide range of applications, including as an additive in solid rocket fuel and high explosives. After decades of research into pure aluminum droplet combustion, there is still much to learn as models struggle to predict combustion performance in a wide range of environments based on available empirical data. More specifically, there remains to be a consensus on the nature of aluminum reactions in oxygen-free environments at high temperatures and pressures. There have been many efforts to study aluminum reactions using non-invasive techniques. This includes pyrometry to study light emission from condensed products of aluminum combustion (nano-sized alumina), as well as acquisition of the aluminum monoxide (AlO) B-X emission band. Pyrometry informs the condensed nano-alumina temperature, and AlO emission informs the gas temperature during aluminum reactions. Although there is plenty of data acquired from these techniques, a key issue that is not addressed is the non-isothermality of aluminum combustion, or the presence of “hot” and “cold” nano-alumina particles, as well as the surrounding suboxide gases (e.g., AlO). Non-isothermality can significantly bias the resulting measured temperature for these techniques, which may explain current discrepancies between experiments and models of aluminum reactions. Therefore, it becomes important to study the nature of light emission from this system before reporting temperatures purely from current spectroscopy techniques. It is shown in this work that there is significant non-isothermality in such a system, yet attempts are made to establish relevant temperatures that are possible in such a system, and a potentially dominant chemical reaction is proposed that could explain the current findings. Furthermore, mechanisms of light emission are proposed that help explain peculiarities (which to the best of our knowledge have never been reported before) observed in emission from nano-alumina and AlO molecules.

Completion Date

2025

Semester

Fall

Committee Chair

Vasu, Subith

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Department

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Format

PDF

Release Date

12-15-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Campus Location

Orlando (Main) Campus

Subjects

Aluminum--Research; Combustion--Research; Metal powders--Combustion; Aluminum oxide--Thermal properties; Solid propellants--Research

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Available for download on Tuesday, December 15, 2026

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