A survey of current developments in surface tension devices for propellant acquisition

Balzer, D. L.; Brill, Yvonne C.; Brock, S. C. De; Grove, R.; Sloma, R. O.; Yankura, G.

doi:10.2514/3.30226

Cited by 25 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Because bladders and diaphragms span across the entire tank, the mass of the diaphragm may rival the mass of the tank walls, making these PMDs impractical in large scale applications. In addition, elastomeric material is not well suited for long life missions [17].…”

Section: Non-capillary Propellant Management Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Traps have been given consideration inside the Arianne-5 upper stage tanks for restart [22,23]. A custom built trap PMD was used in the famous Apollo service module for liquid retention during adverse accelerations such as those caused by the RCS [17,24]. The capillary driven trap allowed the tank to hold liquid over the outlet while simultaneously preventing large gas bubbles from entering the engine feed line.…”

Section: Partial Communication Capillary Propellant Management Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sponges were the first ever PMD to obtain flight heritage in storable propellants. The Agena Upper Stage Rocket, first launched in 1959 [60], used a simple sponge composed of a hemispherical array of metal fins that fanned above a screened trap [17,61,62]. The sponge also had a venting tube to allow any trapped vapor to be vented towards the aft end of the tank while liquid was moved toward the tank outlet.…”

Section: Vehicles and Missionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sponges were used in an ion propulsion engine using liquid cesium propellant for an auxiliary station keeping thruster [17]. The propellant feed system required a surface tension PMD to transport the liquid from the reservoir to a vaporizing surface.…”

Section: Vehicles and Missionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Launched from modified B-52 airplanes at high altitude, the X-15 would continue to accelerate and increase in altitude to conduct high altitude entry maneuvers. A total communication gallery LAD was installed inside the propellant tank, which was a simple screen lining the entire interior tank wall, to access propellant throughout the altitude testing [17,115]. A picture of this unique type of screen channel device is depicted in Figure 19, which was also to be used in the Spacelab experiment onboard the Shuttle [116][117][118].…”

Section: Space Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

A Detailed Historical Review of Propellant Management Devices for Low Gravity Propellant Acquisition

Hartwig

2016

52nd AIAA/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference

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This paper presents a comprehensive background and historical review of Propellant Management Devices (PMDs) used throughout spaceflight history. The purpose of a PMD is to separate liquid and gas phases within a propellant tank and to transfer vapor-free propellant from a storage tank to a transfer line en route to either an engine or receiver depot tank, in any gravitational or thermal environment. The design concept, basic flow physics, and principle of operation are presented for each type of PMD. The three primary capillary driven PMD types of vanes, sponges, and screen channel liquid acquisition devices are compared and contrasted. For each PMD type, a detailed review of previous applications using storable propellants is given, which include space experiments as well as space missions and vehicles. Examples of previous cryogenic propellant management are also presented.

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Section: Non-capillary Propellant Management Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Partial Communication Capillary Propellant Management Dmentioning

confidence: 99%