Development of a low-temperature co-fired ceramic solid propellant microthruster

Abstract

Low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) technology has been first successfully employed for the realization of a solid propellant microthruster. The microthruster has potential applications in microspacecraft as an excellent micropropulsion system for high-accuracy station keeping, attitude control, drag compensation and orbit adjust. The design, fabrication and experimental investigation of LTCC microthrusters are reported. Results from experiments on microcombustion, and thrust and impulse measurements both at sea level and in vacuum are presented. Initial tests employing gunpowder-based solid propellant have produced 3.81 × 10−5–1.27 × 10−4 N s of total impulse and 5.55–14.41 s of specific impulse at sea level, and 1.31 × 10−4–2.79 × 10−4 N s of total impulse and 19.05–31.55 s of specific impulse in vacuum. The performance of the LTCC solid propellant microthruster is also compared with that of a silicon-based solid propellant microthruster.

Flame Phenomena in Premixed Combustible Gases

“…Combustion in small volumes has recently become of interest to applications of micropower generation [77][78][79][80][81] , micropropulsion [82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94] , microengines [95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102] , microactuation [103][104][105] , and microfuel reforming for fuel cells [106][107][108] . The push towards miniaturization of combustion based systems for micropower generation results in large part from the low specifi c energy of batteries and the high specifi c energy of liquid hydrocarbon fuels [77] .…”

Fabrication of Embedded Microstructures Via Lamination of Thick Gel‐Casted Ceramic Layers

“…Low‐temperature co‐fired ceramic technology has been used to develop various microdevices, for example, gas sensors, microfluidic devices, antennae, and microthrusters . Although LTCC is considerably well established, it is not free from limitations.…”

Fabrication of an Inductively Coupled Plasma Antenna in Low Temperature Co‐Fired Ceramic

“…A variety of devices are being pursued including electric propulsion‐based technologies such as resistojets, microcolloid thruster, and microdischarge plasma thrusters, as well as the more traditional chemical propulsion . In these projects with the exception of Zhang, the device was developed using traditional macro scale fabrication techniques or traditional silicon fabrication techniques including photolithography and deposition. The research that is currently being conducted at Boise State University involves the development of a miniaturized electric propulsion device for controlling microsatellites in space.…”