Optimisation of Combustion and Radiometric Behaviour of Magnesium-Teflon-Viton (MTV) IR Decoy Flare Using Grey Relational Analysis

MTV compositions are the most preferred compositions for use in Infrared (IR) decoy flares due to their high energy output.To obtain high IR intensity and low burn rate, systematic combustion studies were done by replacing fuel (5-25 wt.%) and oxidiser (5-25 wt.%) and the addition of burn rate modifiers (1-5 wt.parts) to the baseline MTV compositions.A 100 g batch of each composition was prepared.IR intensity and burn time measurement were done in 3-5 m using a Dual-band IR radiometer.GRA, a statistical analysis tool for optimisation, was employed to identify and optimise the process parameters to fulfil the objectives.A modified MTV composition was obtained with a 28.2% enhancement in the IR intensity and a 21% reduction in the burn rate as compared to the baseline MTV composition.DSC thermogram of the MTV composition helped in understanding the thermal behaviour.REAL thermochemical code was used to calculate the various equilibrium parameters for all the compositions.Spectral intensity versus wavelength data were obtained by SR-5000N Spectroradiometer.The computational data results matched with the experimental data.