Effects of Catalyst Bed Failure on Thermochemical Phenomena for a Hydrazine Monopropellant Thruster Using Ir/Al2O3 Catalysts

Abstract

Hydrazine monopropellant has been used in thrusters for maneuvering satellites and landing spacecraft. Testing and handling procedures for hydrazine monopropellant thrusters are complicated, because of the toxicity of the hydrazine and its decomposition product gases. Therefore, simulated numerical analysis can help elucidate the effects of various thruster design parameters and can reduce both development time and expenses. In this study, a simulated numerical analysis was performed in which the catalyst bed was modeled as a one-dimensional porous medium. The resulting physical phenomena were examined by considering variations in catalyst bed characteristics incurred by catalyst pellet failure. From observations of various hot-firing experiments, it was determined that the upper region of the decomposition chamber was preferentially damaged in failure situations, which led to the conclusion that catalyst failure occurs in the upper region only. We simulated various cases based on the crushing and mass loss of catalyst pellets. The distributions of temperature, species mass fraction, heterogeneous reaction rate, and pressure were calculated after catalyst bed failure. The pressures at the decomposition chamber exit and the thrust at the nozzle exit were monitored with time. Through these analyses, the thermochemical phenomena inside a hydrazine monopropellant thruster system were interpreted in detail.