ASSESSING THE PERFORMANCE OF A GREEN LIQUID FUEL HYPERGOLIC WITH HYDROGEN PEROXIDE IN A 50 N BIPROPELLANT THRUSTER
Leandro José Maschio, Emmanuel Péres de Araújo, Luís Gustavo Ferroni Pereira, Leonardo Henrique Gouvêa, Ricardo Vieira
Abstract
The last decades have witnessed an increasing interest in the development of green propellants for propulsion systems. Particularly in the low thrust domain, where a feasible alternative to the storable liquid bipropellant system hydrazine nitrogen tetroxide is yet to be fully demonstrated, the application of green hypergolic propellants such as ethanol and H2O2 90 wt% appears to be a promising one. This work presents the design and firing test of a 50 N bipropellant thruster based on the H2O2 90 wt% monoethanolamine-ethanol hypergolic pair catalyzed by Cu2+, previously developed by our research group. The 5 s firing test, conducted under a swirl injection scheme, yielded average values of 50.38 N, 147 s, and 1210 m/s for thrust, Isp, and c*, respectively, with the target value of 5 bar for the chamber pressure being reached after 2 s of operation. Alongside with a c* efficiency of 84%, these results suggest that the assessed green hypergolic bipropellant pair may be a promising alternative for applications in the low-thrust range.