Experimental and numerical study on capillary flow along deflectors in plate surface tension tanks in microgravity environment

Abstract

Surface tension tanks are the most widely used satellite propellant tanks, which use liquid surface tension for liquid transportation and gas-liquid separation to provide pure propellant for thruster. As the second generation surface tension tank, the plate type tank has characteristics of simple structure, easy processing and high reliability, and represents development direction of surface tension tanks. In this paper, drop tower experiments are used to investigate transfer speed of deflectors in plate type tanks, and corresponding numerical simulation is carried out in Fluent with Volume of Fluid method.