Development and validation of fluid/thermodynamic models for spacecraft propulsion systems

Abstract

Models and simulations have been developed and applied to a wide variety of monopropellant and bipropellant spacecraft applications, including regulated and blowdown systems. Actual flight and test data from several programs have been used in the validation of the analytical techniques. It has been determined that one relationship can be used with acceptable accuracy for all convective heat transfer processes, simplifying the modeling and avoiding excessive complexity. In addition, the modeling approach has been validated over a wide range of accelerations, encompassing both ground testing and low-g flight applications.