• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.28-39
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• 2018

In this study, numerical simulations were performed for steady and unsteady state characteristics of length effects on linear pintle nozzles using the overset grid method. Nozzles and pintles are created separately by an auto grid generation program to use the overset grid method. Appropriate turbulent models and numerical methods are selected for the validation of simulations. Pintle shapes are chosen from five types, with differences in the ratio of length and diameter. The longer the pintle length, the greater the thrust and thrust coefficient. The chamber pressure tendency of steady-state and unsteady-state are different for various pintle velocities. The thrust of the nozzle exit responds to changes in the nozzle throat in the unsteady-state, and the speed of pressure propagation wave generated by movement of the pintle is considered to predict the major factor of performance.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.247-255
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to investigate unsteady-state characteristics of a pintle thruster with various pintle speed. Based on steady state experimental results, non-linear pintle stroke equation is obtained and applied to the unsteady state experimental system. For the unsteady state experiments, three different pintle speeds are used: 3.10 mm/s, 5.65 mm/s, 10.83 mm/s, respectively. Results show that backward pintle stroke results in faster convergence time because of high chamber pressure during backward pintle stroke sequence. During the forward and backward process, thrust curve shows singular points. These phenomenons is caused by variation of mass flow rate, which is mainly due to changes of both chamber pressures and nozzle throat area. This behavior becomes distinctive for a faster pintle speed case.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.165-172
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• 2022

Pintle injector is the most suitable injector for thrust control because it can control the area of propellant injection. Accordingly, the combustion test of multiple hole pintle injector and continuous type pintle injector was carried out in this paper using liquid oxygen and gas methane. The combustion performance of the two pintles was verified with the characteristic speed efficiency, and the experimental results were compared according to the O/F and combustion chamber pressure and under similar conditions. The efficiency of the multi hole pintle was generally somewhat higher than continuous pintle when pintle opening distance(the area of dispensing oxidizer) was in a 100% thrust condition.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.43 no.12
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• pp.1071-1078
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• 2015

Numerical computations were performed to investigate the effects of pintle stroke, altitude, and bore on the performance of an external pintle thruster. Results show that under-expansion flow occurs always, independent of pintle stroke. An external pintle thruster shows good performance in that it is capable of good amount of thrust control, while aerodynamic loads are increased due to shock waves on the pintle support. When altitude is increased to 20 km, the nozzle exit velocity, Mach number, thrust as well as aerodynamic loads are increased. Bore increases aerodynamic load 5.9%, and therefore pintle shape without bore is preferred for lower aerodynamic load of a pintle in order to actuate the pintle.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.311-317
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• 2015

This paper describes how to apply one-dimensional simulation to predict unsteady state characteristics of the cold-gas pintle thruster. Mass flow rate, chamber pressure, and nozzle exit pressure are key parameters for thrust control. Chamber pressure rose and fell monotonously with the pintle stroke variation, while thrust variation was different from chamber pressure variation. During the forward pintle stroke operation, the thrust value tended to decrease initially and returned to increase when pintle speed and chamber free volume exceed some specified value. Even though one-dimensional simulation has the limitations to predict unsteady state characteristics, it is still useful for initial performance assessment of various thrusters which adopt an altitude compensation nozzle such as a dual-bell nozzle, prior to experiment or numerical analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.22-31
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• 2018

In this study, numerical simulations were performed to determine the dynamic characteristics of a pintle nozzle, with changes to the chamber boundary conditions. To apply movement, to the pintle, the nozzle and pintle were created separately by an auto-grid generation program using an overset grid method. The chamber boundary conditions were selected between a constant mass-flow rate condition and a propellant burn-back condition. The pressure and thrust characteristics of the constant mass-flow rate condition were determined by changing the ratio of the mass-flow rate in the inlet. The propellant burn-back condition was considered by formulation of the combustion rate. The burn-back conditions represented nonlinear phenomena, unlike the constant mass flow rate, and a small flow rate resulted in a large change in the chamber pressure.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.17-25
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• 2022

The pintle injector has many advantages in the key characteristics of a liquid rocket engine, such as combustion stability, combustion efficiency, and wide range of comprehensive thrust control, design and manufacture, and test fired under supercritical conditions. The pintle injector is manufactured with a rectangular, single-row orifice for thrust control and production considerations. In order to verify the combustion performance of the pintle injector and its potential as a commercial injector, the combustion characteristics were analyzed by varying the TMR (Total Momentum Ratio) and BF (Blockage Factor). The result of the hot firing test showed that the heat flux increased as TMR increased, and it confirmed that the characteristic velocity efficiency was more affected by BF than TMR. Suppose a single-row pintle injector with efficiency characteristics insensitive to changes in TMR can achieve high efficiency at low fuel differential pressure conditions. In that case, the variable pintle injector's design flexibility can be increase.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.36-43
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• 2017

In this study, a pintle injector rocket engine which uses kerosene and liquid oxygen as propellants was manufactured by collecting basic design data and establishing a design procedure. Combustion performance of the liquid rocket engine was investigated by characteristic velocity efficiency with characteristic length of the combustion chamber and total momentum ratio. As a result of hot fire tests, it showed that the engine had shorter characteristic length comparing to those of other type injectors, which was known as recommended value with the propellant combination. Also, the characteristic velocity efficiency was greatly affected by total momentum ratio and almost constant within 1.0~1.5.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.25-33
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• 2017

In this study, combustion tests were performed to investigate combustion performance of a pintle injector engine with double row rectangular slot which uses kerosene and liquid oxygens as propellants. The double row rectangular slot was designed to improve the combustion performance of a pintle engine with a single row and the blockage factor was changed from 0.7 to 1.0. The main design parameters of the double row were distance between rows, area ratio and aspect ratio. The characteristic velocity efficiency was measured from 92.4 to 96.9 percentage for double row but 86.8 percentage for single row. It showed the highest combustion performance at the BF 0.85.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.78-84
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• 2020

The performance of pintle thruster is analyzed by using the pintle thruster performance analysis model which integrating the element models introduced in Part I. To verify the performance analysis, the results of the developed program are compared with the experimental data of kerosene/hydrogen peroxide liquid pintle thrusters. Based on the results, the characteristics of the pintle thruster are analyzed. The sensitivity analysis is performed to investigate the effect of thruster shape and operation parameters on performance characteristics using both OAT and scatter plot methods. The four performance parameters such as droplet diameter, film flow rate, O/F ratio, and nozzle throat diameter are evaluated to investigate their effects on characteristic speed, combustor pressure, and specific thrust.