Under dynamic acceleration or microgravity conditions, controlling the position of liquid propellants in the tanks is considerably difficult Moreover, once sloshing of cryogenic fluid occurs, pressure in the rocket tanks drops due to heat transfer and phase change between gas and liquid. To restrain the dynamic behavior of liquid propellants, baffle plates are one of the widely used devices. However, in the present experiments, it was observed that pressure drop in the tanks with a baffle plate was sometimes larger and more rapid than that in the bare tank without a baffle plate. Unexpected pressure drop can induce cavitation at the inlet of turbo-pump. Therefore, in terms of enhancing reliability of cryogenic propellant using systems and reducing the operational risks, not only dynamic but also thermal behavior of cryogenic fluid should be quantitatively assessed. In this study, non-isothermal sloshing of liquid nitrogen and gaseous nitrogen was successfully visualized and the mechanism of pressure drop was discussed thorough experimental and numerical investigations.
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