Experiment Investigation on Fluid Transportation Performance of Propellant Acquisition Vanes in Microgravity Environment

Abstract

The propellant acquisition vane (PAV) is a key part of a vane type surface tension propellant management device (PMD), which can manage the propellant effectively. In the present paper, the fluid transportation behaviors for five PAVs with different sections were investigated by using microgravity drop tower test. Further, numerical simulation for the propellant flow in a PMD under microgravity condition was also carried out based on VOF model, and showed the similar flow pattern for PAVs to the experiment. It is noted that the section geometry of PAVs is one of the main factors affecting the fluid transportation behavior of PMD. PAVs with bottom length ratio of 5/6 and 1/2 have larger propellant transportation velocity. Based on the experiments, there were two stages during the process of propellant transportation under microgravity environment: liquid relocation and steady transportation stage. It is also recognized that there is a linear correlation between liquid transportation velocity and relative time's square root. Those results can not only provide a guideline for optimization of new vane type PMDs, but also are helpful for fluid control applications in space environment.

Profiles of Static Liquid–Gas Interfaces in Axisymmetric Containers with Different Accelerations

“…Weislogel et al 1 derived dynamic equations of surface-tensiondriven flows along interior corners, and the same method has been adopted to derive the dynamic equations of flows along interior corners formed by planar walls of varying wettability, 2 rounded interior corners, 3 interior corners of rounded walls, 4 curved interior corners, 5 and interior corners in plate type tanks. 6 Zhou et al 7 comprehensively studied surface-tensiondriven flows along corners with arbitrary cross-sections and presented universal mathematical models of flows. Tian et al 8 derived dynamic equations of liquid climbing in a narrow and tilting corner by seeking the minimum of the Rayleighian.…”