Liquid propellant: catalyst pact pressure drop effect of 50 N green thruster

Catalyst pack pressure drop (Pcp) is an important design parameter to know the performance of thruster. Based on this problem, the aim of this study is to determine the performance of 50 N green thruster from catalyst pack pressure drop value in term of group parameter. A group of parameter is affecting catalyst pack pressure drop is involving parameter such as catalyst pack heating temperature (Tcp), injection pressure (Pin), inversely proportional of mass flux () (catalyst pack pressure drop is known to be a function of mass flux) and the injector (Di) or nozzle throat diameter (Dt). Experimental investigations are carried out under the controlled conditions in Liquid Propulsion Laboratory located in Aeronautics Laboratory, Universiti Teknologi, Malaysia. Tests are performed under the catalyst packs heating temperature in range 75ºC to 200ºC, the compaction pressure for catalyst pack are 6.0 MPa and 9.3 MPa, the injection pressure in range of 29 Bar to 37 Bar and two different injector diameter, 1.045 mm and 1.367 mm, and nozzle throat diameter, 4.574 mm and 3.588 mm. From the study, the effect of each operating parameters denotes that the effect of catalyst pack pressure drop (function of mass flux) affects the decomposition efficiency is identified. The small diameter injector of 1.045 mm with large nozzle throat diameter 4.574 mm, compaction pressure about 9.3 MPa and injection pressure about 37 Bar are achieved the optimum thruster configuration setting for approximate 50 N thrust production. However, the effect of large injector diameter and small nozzle throat diameter will decline in decomposition efficiency in this study. Additionally, the effect of catalyst pack heating temperature on the catalyst pack pressure drop (Pcp) does not lead to any correlation to the decomposition efficiency and thruster performance.