Study on propellant management device in plate surface tension tanks

Abstract

Surface tension tanks exploit the liquid surface tension in liquid transport and gas–liquid separation to provide gas-free propellant for the thruster. High transport efficiency of deflectors can ensure liquid relocation in the microgravity environment within a short period of time, which is helpful for providing gas-free propellant. This paper explores transport efficiency of deflectors through drop tower experiments and numerical simulations with the volume of fluid method. The experimental and numerical results show that both the liquid flow speed and the mass flow rate along deflectors increase as the widths of deflectors increase. Besides, a new type of propellant management device, which consists of four deflectors and four anti-sloshing baffles, is verified with numerical simulations and drop tower experiments. Moreover, long-term conditions are predicted by using similarity theories. These results can provide important references for the design of plate tanks.