PROSPECTS FOR THE USE OF WOVEN METAL MESHES AS PHASE SEPARATORS

Abstract

The constant complication of the tasks that arise before spacecraft during their flight mission puts very high demands on the fuel supply system. First of all, during orbital flight, very often there is a need to restart the main engines, or a constant supply of fuel to the engines of the control system. It is necessary to deliver fuel from tanks to engine combustion chambers in conditions of practical weightlessness. To ensure the ingress of fuel components from the tank into the drain line without gas inclusions, a fuel continuity system is added to the fuel supply system. 
 Among the various systems for ensuring fuel continuity, the most widespread over the past fifty years have been mesh phase separators, the main working element of which is woven metal mesh.
 The paper considers the basic properties of systems of this type, their main design parameters from the point of view of the possibility of their improvement and the possibility of use in future designs of spacecraft. Considerable attention is paid to the shortcomings inherent in systems of this type. Possible ways to eliminate the limitations of the use of mesh phase separators through the development of new engineering design techniques and the use of modern technologies to create analogues of woven metal meshes, which are devoid of their main drawbacks, are considered.