Internal Ballistics of a Combustion Driven Potato Cannon using High-Speed Video

A potato cannon was designed to accommodate several different experimental propellants and have a transparent barrel so the movement of the projectile could be recorded on high-speed video at 2000 frame per second. Both combustion chamber and barrel were made of polyvinyl chloride PVC. Five experimental propellants were tested propane C3H9, acetylene C2H2, ethanol C2H6O, methanol CH4O, and butane C4H10. The amount of each experimental propellant was calculated to approximate a stoichiometric mixture and considering the Upper Flammability Limit UFL and the Lower Flammability Limit LFL, which in turn were affected by the volume of the combustion chamber.