Making Temperature Measurements Inside An Ammonium Perchlorate Crystal Using Encapsulated Thermophosphors

Phosphor thermography is an effective technique for making spatially resolved temperature measurements on surfaces, however little consideration has been given to incorporating the phosphors inside crystalline materials to make internal measurements. Doing so would grant optical access to the phosphors through the crystal. In this work, we prepared a thermographic energetic composite via fast crash encapsulation of BaMgAl₁₀O₁₇:Eu (BAM) in ammonium perchlorate (AP) crystals, which enabled the use of phosphor thermography to spatially resolve the temperature of the energetic composite. We demonstrate that the temperature measurements show good agreement with thermocouple measurements. The ability to calibrate the material was also demonstrated and compared to the response in dynamic thermal environments. Usability limits as well as thermal stability issues of the composite were also investigated and discussed. The successful encapsulation of BAM within AP and demonstration of thermographic behavior in the composite, indicate the viability of using encapsulation as a method to produce thermographic energetic composites.