Attitude control thruster plume flow modelling and experiments

Dettleff, G.; Boettcher, R.-D.; Dankert, C.; Koppenwallner, G.; Legge, H.

doi:10.2514/6.1985-933

Cited by 4 publications

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Determination of plume impingement disturbance characteristics for the ROCSAT-1 satellite

Yang

Kuo

2002

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G:

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The impingement disturbance characteristics of the hydrazine thruster plumes have been examined comprehensively for the R OCSAT-1 satellite. In this study, the velocity and temperature distrib utions at the nozzle exit are obtained from the nozzle¯ow®eld analysis. The axial velocity, transverse velocity and temperature pro®les are further correlated with the curve-®tting procedure for resolving in¯ow properties of molecules ejected into a vacuum. The free-molecular direct simulation M onte Carlo technique is used to describe the particle nature of the distant plume¯ow behaviour near the impingement surface. The in¯ow molecular motions as well as the collisio n interactions between the molecules and the solid surface are treated on a probabilistic basis. On the other hand, the intercollision s among molecules are considered to be relatively unimportant in the far-®eld plume region. A reasonable number of simulated molecules is also employed to reproduce the¯uid behaviour in the macroscopic level. The predicted disturbance torques and thrust loss are found to be much less than the design control torques and the nominal thrust force for R OCSAT-1 satellite, indicating that the plume impingement effect will not cause any performance deterioration of the propulsive function.

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Determination of plume impingement disturbance characteristics for the ROCSAT-1 satellite

Yang

Kuo

2002

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G:

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Plume impingement investigation using Monte-Carlo computations

Yang

2006

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G:

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Numerical simulations have been performed to explore the effects of important design parameters on impingement disturbance properties of multiple hydrazine thruster plumes. The particle behaviour of the far-field plume flows near the impingement surfaces is modelled using the collisionless molecular direct simulation Monte-Carlo method with the inflow boundary condition derived from the velocity and temperature profiles at the nozzle exit. The entering molecular motions and the impact interactions between molecules and solid boundaries are treated on a probabilistic basis, whereas the main flow properties are preserved from the transformation of the microscopic fluid activities of simulated molecules. To validate the present computer code, the predicted transverse Pitot pressure profile was compared with the measured data in the far plume region of an MBB/ERNO 0.5-N conical nozzle. On the basis of the ROCSAT-1 design configuration, the calculated plume disturbance torques are examined in the yaw, roll, and pitch directions for different settings of the canted angle of the thruster mounting and the satellite centre-of-mass (CM) offset. Predictions show that the normalized yaw impingement disturbance torque reaches 6.3 per cent at the cant angle of 30°, indicating that the associated plume collision effect on the attitude control can be important at large cant angles. In addition, the location change of the satellite CM in the axial axis reveals insignificant influence on the impingement torque for the offset value varying from −5.0 to 5.0 cm.

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