Numerical Study on Response Characteristics of Solid Rocket Pintle Motor

Abstract

Pintle technology is currently a versatile technology used in a solid rocket motor (SRM) to control the desired thrust by changing the nozzle throat area, while effectively controlling the chamber pressure at the same time. The sudden movement of the pintle can induce rapid changes in the flow field and the occurrence of pressure oscillations inside the combustion chamber. The analysis of such rapid changes is essential to design an efficient controllable pintle rocket motor for a better thrust regulation. Two-dimensional axisymmetric models with mesh generation and required boundary condition were designed to analyze the effects of three different pintle head shape models in SRM thrust regulation effect. Dynamic mesh method was used with specific velocity for moving plug/pintle in the numerical analysis of SRM thrust regulation. The effects of different pintle head models on the flow field, combustion chamber pressure, mass-flow rate, thrust and Mach number were investigated. According to the analysis of total pressure response time, the simulation data revealed that circular pintle head model responded faster among three different models. According to the thrust effect, parabolic pintle has the maximum value of thrust and the greatest total pressure recovery coefficient among all pintle head models.

Performance Comparison of Control Strategies for a Variable-Thrust Solid-Propellant Rocket Motor

“…Therefore, the propulsion dynamics can be expressed to the first-order linear ordinary differential equation as Equation (23) [28,36,37].…”

“…Therefore, for effective pressure and thrust control of a VTSRM, it is essential to design the control algorithms considering the nonlinearity and uncertainty [13]. For these reasons, many studies have been carried out to solve the issues keeping these advantages of VTSRM, focusing on several concepts: control of thrust and combustion pressure [13][14][15][16], a reaction control system (RCS) composed of multiple nozzles for divert and attitude control [17][18][19][20], the flow characteristics by pintle shape using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) [21][22][23][24], the experiment using cold or hot gas [25,26], and a part of ramjet or scramjet to generate and control the fuel-rich combustion gas [8][9][10][11].…”

Study on the Effect of Oxidative Jet and Vortex Structure in Fluidic Throat Combined with Thrust Vector Control

“…The control of thrust, both in magnitude and direction, is crucial in solid rocket motor engineering. This control plays a significant role in increasing the flight range of aircraft, improving maneuverability, and reducing the impact of the environment on the aircraft [1][2][3][4]. However, adjusting thrust for solid rocket motors is challenging because the solid propellant burns continuously and uncontrollably once ignited, until all the propellant is consumed [5,6].…”