Design Optimization for a High Performance Regenerative Liquid Propellant Gun

The regenerative liquid propellant gun RLPG concept offers a possible replacement for solid propellant SP cannons on future battle tanks. The current 120-mm gun using JA2 granular propellant develops a maximum pressure of 519 MPa and accelerates a 7.12 kg projectile to 1670 ms in a projectile travel of 4.75 m. The advantages of the RLPG relative to the equivalent SP gun are 1 more ammunition storage aboard the tank 2 mechanical control of injection which results in a flat-topped pressure-time curve and thus a higher muzzle velocity for a given maximum pressure and 3 no secondary muzzle flash. The disadvantages include greater mechanical complexity and higher maximum breech pressures in the liquid reservoir than in the SP case. Simulation studies have been made of a high performance 120-mm RLPG tank cannon. The ground rules used in the study are 1 maximum projectile travel of 6.3 m 2 maximum liquid pressure of 700 MPa 3 maximum combustion pressure of about 500 MPa and 4 constant injection area. Three liquid propellants were considered hydroxyl ammonium nitrate HAN propellants LGP1845 and LGP1846 and a hypothetical liquid JA2 propellant. The in-bore projectile mass was varied from 5 to 13 kg. The results show that a high performance RLPG tank gun provides a muzzle velocity equivalent to that of a comparable SP gun. Keywords Liquid monopropellant, Regenerative gun, Lumped parameter model.