Roman Candles are a type of Firework that usually shoots it's content from a single mortar but multiple times.They are sell both for the consumer and professional market. They exist in small and bigger sizes, some shooting little stars while others shoot big comets or small shells.
Are simple items but their construction is interesting and can change depending on the manufacturer, but the working principle is always the same.
The basic concept is the use of a strong (because it needs to support multiple firings) and long cardboard mortar. Inside it, there are 4 main components: the lifting powder, the spacers, the flying items (stars, comets or shells) and obviously, as any other fireworks, the fuses.
Each spacer contains a fuse in the middle to control the timing between each firing and prevent the fire goes once to the bottom, shooting all items at the same time.
As in the other posts I do, I'm attaching an image, so you could understand better the entire process:
The fire process occurs from top to bottom. Once the fuse is ignited and it reaches the first comet/powder set, it is expelled. After that, there is a fuse in the middle of the spacer that passes the fire to the next comet/powder set, and the process repeats until the bottom.
As you may think, the longer the mortar, the higher the comet/star goes up. By this way, you may deduct the first upper stages will fly in shorter distances - it may be or not - it will depend on the manufacturer. Some use more lifting powder in the upper stages to compensate the shorter space the star/comet will travel inside the mortar gaining the needed compression to reach similar altitudes of the below stages.
In professional shows, they are many times used in pyromusical displays, in conjunction with single shot mines.
An example of Roman Candles firing
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