Empirical and Computational Performance Prediction for Monopropellant Hydrazine Thruster Employed for Satellite

摘要

A ground hot-fire test and numerical simulations were conducted to analyze the high-temperature gas flow in anmonopropellant hydrazine thruster used for the reaction control of small satellites.A5Ngrade thruster was used fornthese tests and simulations. The ground hot-fire test results show the basic characteristics of a hydrazine thruster andnwere used as verification criteria for the numerical analysis. It was found that the fraction of ammonia dissociation isnan essential variable for determining the thruster performance based on a one-dimensional isentropic analysis. Anrelatively simple relation between the catalyst bed temperature and the fraction of ammonia dissociation adopted innthe simulation showed that it reduces the analysis error from an arbitrary assumption of the fraction of ammoniandissociation without solving the complicated hydrazine catalytic reaction. The thruster performance was effectivelynpredicted by numerical analysis, which includes the effect of fraction of ammonia dissociation. The significantnfeatures of the analysis program are that solving the complicated hydrazine decomposition process can be avoidednand that two-dimensional flowfield information in the thruster can be provided covering a wide range of propellantninlet pressures from 3.45 to 24.14 bar.