Abstract
Spray characteristics of hypergolic propellants injected by unlike impingement nozzles, which is used for the attitude control or the orbit transfer of a spacecraft, have been investigated under combusting conditions. The atomization process of combusting hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) was visualized by means of a laser sheet and a high-speed camera, and the droplet size distributions were calculated by image processing based on the Mie-scattering theory.
Compared with the non-reactive flow of simulants, the atomization process of the reactive flow was accelerated by the immediate ignition of the hypergolic propellants. The atomization mechanisms in the reactive and the non-reactive cases was not similar, for the empirical constants to approximate the experimental results was significantly different in both cases.
