5. Development of a 3D Grain Burnback Simulation Tool for Solid Rocket Motors

The study presents the newly developed fast three-dimensional grain burnback tool. The computational method that has been developed is based on minimum distance calculation technique. Structured grid for computational domain modeling has been used, and grid based-surface propagation method has been utilized for grain burnback simulation by using STL and SLP file formats. The developed simulation tool is able to solve very complex grain geometries. The auto mesh interface tool has been tested for quite complex grain geometries. The solution domain has been created properly without any user interference. It is observed that the determined specific distance ratio gives an acceptable accuracy within a short computation time. The burnback simulations of a real solid rocket motor indicate that the symmetrical model used with the initial distance calculation method provides an important computational time improvements. The burnback analysis of symmetrical models, initial distance calculation method, and distance calculation without sign correction methods are the originalities of the current tool. In addition, the use of SLP file format in burnback simulation and the mesh interface implementation of the developed tool significantly reduces the required total amount of user interaction for the initialization of the burnback model. This also reduces total simulation time and the error due to the user interaction.