Unsteady Flow Analysis of Liquid Hydrazine Propellant for the Design Parameter Derivation of Satellite Propulsion System

인공위성 추진기관 설계변수 도출을 위한 Hydrazine 액체 추진제의 비정상 유동해석

One of the way to derive design parameters of the fuel feeding system in satellite is to analyze unsteady flow of liquid propellant (hydrazine) in the propulsion system. During steady thruster firing the flow rate is constant: if a thruster valve is abruptly shut down among a sets of thrusters, pressure spikes much higher than the initial tank pressure occur. This renders the fuel flow unsteady, and the fluid pressure and flow rate to oscillate. If the pressure spikes are high enough, there are possibilities that propellant explosively decomposes, thruster valves are damaged, and adiabatic detonation of the hydrazine propellant is potentially incurred. Reflected shockwaves could also affect the calibration and operation of the pressure transducers. These necessitate the analysis of unsteady flow in the propulsion system design, and the calculation results obtained through some governing parameter variation are presented in this work.