The fact that it's a dangerous-when-wet material, like the aluminum, magnesium,
and zinc used in amateur solid propellants, ought not to be a serious issue.
TRA Research folks routinely use those three materials. Presumably a big
cylindrical chunk of TiH2 wouldn't be readily available, so it'd need to be
cast in a suitable binder. And that operation would undoubtedly be done in a
lab (or at least, not out where the motor is to be tested/launched).
However, as Henry S. noted elsewhere, it outgasses hydrogen, and I'm pretty
sure that's going to make batch-to-batch reproducibility a bit sketchy.
Best -- Terry
________________________________
From: arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of
Robert Steinke <robert.steinke@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2021 7:10 PM
To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [AR] Re: TiH2: useful in rockets?
Wait a minute...a hybrid with the Isp of candy propellant where the oxidizer is
liquid Nitrogen? No LOX cleaning. No monopropellant. The fuel isn't anything
exotic and can be shipped as a 4.1 flammable solid. There actually may be a
place for this in amateur rocketry.
On Sun, Mar 14, 2021 at 4:04 PM Terry McCreary
<prfesser@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:prfesser@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
FWIW on a quick series of runs with Propep 3, optimum Isp is just under 160
seconds for a TiH2:N2 ratio of 75:25.
Optimum mixture of sorbitol and potassium nitrate is about 155 seconds.
It doesn't appear that the game is worth the candle, unless there are other
whiz-bang kinetic properties that will only show up with testing.
Best -- Terry