Investigation on Performance Characteristics of Hydrazine Monopropellant Thruster according to Reaction Chamber Adiabatic Temperature

Abstract

In this paper, by creating and developing a code based on thermodynamics and gas dynamics equations, the performance characteristics of a 1N hydrazine monopropellant thruster such as thrust force, specific impulse, characteristic exhaust velocity, and propellant mass flow rate have been studied theoretically in terms of reaction chamber temperature. In this regard, by taking into account the adiabatic assumption, the reaction chamber temperature of monopropellant thruster has been analyzed zero-dimensionally using the ammonia dissociation rate as an independent variable under equilibrium and non-equilibrium conditions and it has been analyzed one-dimensionally using the hydrazine and ammonia homogeneous and heterogeneous reaction rate constants. Also, the effect of nozzle throat thermal expansion on reaction chamber pressure, thrust force, and propellant mass flow rate and the effect of reaction chamber pressure on ammonia dissociation rate and consequently on reaction chamber adiabatic temperature under thermodynamic equilibrium conditions have been studied.

Keywords

• monopropellant thruster
• hydrazine
• ammonia dissociation rate
• performance characteristics
• reaction chamber temperature