Innovative Predictive Model for Determining Bore Erosion

New requirements for modern gun systems have greatly increased the propellant flame temperature and reactivity of the combustion products. As a result, thermochemical erosion can greatly reduced the service life of the gun tubes in these systems. Coatings, liners, additives, and deterred propellants have been used to mitigate erosion, with mixed results. In order to design a new gun tube which resists excessive wear, a thorough understanding of the mechanisms contributing to thermochemical erosion is necessary. Although many of the tools required to calculate thermochemical erosion have been developed under previous studies, these existing models need to be extended to increase their applicability for new gun systems and the results merged into the current Thermo-Chemical Erosion Program (TCEP). This new program development will result in a computer code that melds modern computational modeling with all the prior knowledge of thermochemical erosion. The resulting code will allow designers to parametrically evaluate and compare erosion performance resulting from various combinations of propellants, materials, and wear-reduction technologies. This screening tool will allow the designer to concentrate on the most promising wear resistant technology, rather than waste time, resources, and money on a hit and miss approach.