Email this article and Applied Mechanics
56, 3, pp. 713-725, Warsaw 2018
DOI: 10.15632/jtam-pl.56.3.713
Study of the effects of preheated wall/plates in microthruster systems
studied using a DSMC/NS solver. Three microthruster configuration types are studied.
Type 1 is a cold gas microthrster. Microthruster type 2 has pre-heated walls. Pre-heated
plates are inserted inside the chamber of microthruster type 3. It is observed that in mi-
crothruster type 2 the flow is accelerated and the specific impulse is elevated. However, by
insertion of the pre-heated plates in microthruster type 3, viscous effects have stronger nega-
tive influence and the thrust is decreased. By implementing temperature gradients on walls
in type 2 and on plates in type 3, it is observed that a higher temperature gradient enhances
performance parameters of microthruters. Among all types of microthrusters, microthruster
type 2 with pre-heated walls has the highest thrust and specific impulse. Microthruster ty-
pe 3 with a temperature gradient of 300-500K has the minimum thrust due to a considerable
decrease in the mass flow rate.
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