11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 (12) United States Patent (1o) Patent No.: US 8,572,946 B2 Mungas et al. (45) Date of Patent: Nov. 5, 2013 (54) MICROFLUIDIC FLAME BARRIER 1,103,503 A 7/1914 Goddard 1,586,195 A 5/1926 Hall (75) Inventors: Gregory S. Mungas, Mojave, CA (US); 2,609,281 A 9/1952 Smith 2,714,563 A 2/1955 Norman et al. David J. Fisher, Tehachapi, CA (US); 3,243,272 A3/1966 Schmitz Christopher Mungas, Plymouth, CA 3,266,241 A * 8/1966 Jennings ......................... 60/258 (US) 3,512,556 A 5/1970 McKhann 3,719,046 A 3/1973 Sutherland et al. (73) Assignee: Firestar Engineering, LLC, Mojave, 3,779,714 A 12/1973 Nadkarni et al. CA (US) (Continued) (*) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) by 0 days. EP 1500880 1/2005 EP 1500880 A2 1/2005 (21) Appl. No.: 13/549,027 (Continued) (22) Filed: Jul. 13, 2012 OTHER PUBLICATIONS "aRocket", an amateur rocketry discussion forum onhttp://exrocktry . (65) Prior Publication Data net/mailman/listinfo/arocket, Dec. 31, 2009. US 2012/0279196 Al Nov. 8, 2012 (Continued) Related U.S. Application Data Primary Examiner Phutthiwat Wongwian (63) Continuation-in-part of application No. 11/950,174, filed on Dec. 4, 2007, now Pat. No. 8,230,672, and a (74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm HolzerIPLaw, PC continuation of application No. 12/613,188, filed on Nov. 5, 2009, now Pat. No. 8,230,673. (57) ABSTRACT (60) Provisional application No. 60/868,523, filed on Dec. Propellants flow through specialized mechanical hardware 4, 2006. that is designed for effective and safe ignition and sustained combustion of the propellants. By integrating a micro-fluidic (51) Int. Cl. porous media element between a propellant feed source and B63H 11/00 (2006.01) the combustion chamber, an effective and reliable propellant (52) U.S. Cl. injector head may be implemented that is capable of with- USPC ............................................ 60/204; 60/39.11 standing transient combustion and detonation waves that (58) Field of Classification Search commonly occur during an ignition event. The micro-fluidic USPC ......................... 60/39.11, 204, 257, 258, 260 porous media element is of specified porosity or porosity See application file for complete search history. gradient selected to be appropriate for a given propellant. 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