Experimental and Numerical Investigation on Thrust Performance Improvement of Micro-Single-Nozzle Thrusters

Abstract

Experimental and numerical investigations on thrust performance of micro-single-nozzle thrusters with different area ratios were conducted to characterize and improve thrust performance of each nozzle. In the numerical simulation, the detailed mechanism of thrust improvement was investigated. From the experimental and numerical, studies, it was shown that for micro-single-nozzles with different throat sizes with identical exit height the thrust increased when the throat size was reduced. In the simulation, it was shown that pressure along the nozzle wall and static pressure at nozzle-exit plane became larger for smaller throat size nozzles. In this case, it turned out that contribution of the pressure thrust on the total thrust was more significant.