A fluid transient analysis for the propellant flow with an unsteady friction in a monopropellant propulsion system

A fluid transient analysis on the Koreasat 1 & 2 pipeline system is conducted through numerical parametric studies in which unsteady friction results are compared with quasi-steady friction results and show relatively accurate prediction of the response curve with the unsteady friction. The code developed and used in this analysis has finished verification through comparing with the original Zielke model, the full and recursive convolution model and quasi-steady model as a reference. The unsteady friction is calculated by the recursive convolution Zielke model in which a complete evolution history of velocity field is no longer required so that it makes the fluid transient analysis on the complicated system possible. The results show that the application of quasi-steady friction to model cannot predict the entire response curve properly except the first peak amplitude but application of unsteady friction to model can predict reasonably he response curve, therefore it is to know the characteristics of the propulsion system.