• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.275-278
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• 2010

By changing the nozzle throat area during the operation, thrust of a pintle thruster can be adjusted easily such as a liquid propulsion. In this paper, numerical analysis was carried out for SNECMA's pintle thruster with different pintle shapes. Flow field and aerodynamic load changed drastically with pintle shapes. Bore in the pintle decreased aerodynamic load significantly.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.18-21
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• 2011

In this study, basic research on the pressure control using driven pintle of modulatable thruster is presented. For this purpose, pintle thruster and pintle shape was developed. The actuator model was selected by calculating pintle load using Fluent software. Preliminary unsteady experimental results show that huge pressure oscillation is occurred as the pintle approach toward nozzle wall. From the preliminary experimental results, we could see possibility of pressure control of the modulatable thruster.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.43 no.12
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• pp.1071-1078
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• 2015

Numerical computations were performed to investigate the effects of pintle stroke, altitude, and bore on the performance of an external pintle thruster. Results show that under-expansion flow occurs always, independent of pintle stroke. An external pintle thruster shows good performance in that it is capable of good amount of thrust control, while aerodynamic loads are increased due to shock waves on the pintle support. When altitude is increased to 20 km, the nozzle exit velocity, Mach number, thrust as well as aerodynamic loads are increased. Bore increases aerodynamic load 5.9%, and therefore pintle shape without bore is preferred for lower aerodynamic load of a pintle in order to actuate the pintle.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.189-192
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• 2011

In solid rockets, a pintle thruster is a modulatable thrust device which controlls nozzle throat area. In this study, effect of bore on aerodynamic loads in a SNECMA modulatable thruster was carried out. Existence of bore resulted in reduced aerodynamic load.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.262-267
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• 2012

For DACS system which controls pintle position to change nozzle throat area, one actuator has been used for each modulatable pintle thruster. This ten actuator system drove to complex system structure and complicated control mechanism. In order to overcome this shortcomings, international patents were reviewed, analysed and presented.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.1-9
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• 2017

Numerical computations are performed to investigate the effect of pintle stroke on the performance of an internal pintle thruster. Results show that the thrust control ratio was less than 2% and the aerodynamic load ratio was 22% as the pintle stroke increased. The flow past the nozzle throat rapidly expanding because of the shape of the pintle, and a shock wave was generated. Particularly, at the pintle stroke distance of 4 and 5 mm, the shock wave hit the wall of the nozzle, results in peeling bubbles. Depending on the altitude, the thrust increased and the aerodynamic load decreased, but the difference was as small as 1.5%. In the presence of the bore, the reduction of the pintle tip area resulted in a decrease in aerodynamic load.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.153-156
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• 2011

Steady state experiment was carried out for modulatable thruster applications, with four different pintles. Results show that thrust can be modulated by changing nozzle throat area with pintle penetration. However, effect of pintle shape on the thruster performance is yet to be concluded.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.311-317
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• 2015

This paper describes how to apply one-dimensional simulation to predict unsteady state characteristics of the cold-gas pintle thruster. Mass flow rate, chamber pressure, and nozzle exit pressure are key parameters for thrust control. Chamber pressure rose and fell monotonously with the pintle stroke variation, while thrust variation was different from chamber pressure variation. During the forward pintle stroke operation, the thrust value tended to decrease initially and returned to increase when pintle speed and chamber free volume exceed some specified value. Even though one-dimensional simulation has the limitations to predict unsteady state characteristics, it is still useful for initial performance assessment of various thrusters which adopt an altitude compensation nozzle such as a dual-bell nozzle, prior to experiment or numerical analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.107-118
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• 2017

As the interest in lunar exploration increases, a throttleable engine is regarded as a important technology. Variable area injectors have been identified to be the most reliable throttling method. Pintle injector is a representative injector of the variable method. It has a simple design and inherent combustion stability. Therefore, it is necessary to research the pintle injector. The present study investigates the concept of the injector, the design factors, and the latest development trends for pintle injector design.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.304-310
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• 2015

Pintle thrusters use pintle stroke to change nozzle throat area, and this controls thrust. Using MATLAB, one-dimensional simulation has been investigated and the results are compared to those of cold flow tests and computational fluid dynamics for the pintle thruster of Chungnam National University. The prediction based on one-dimensional flow theory shows good agreement with measurements for chamber pressure, but deviates for thrust, partly because of nozzle wall separation. Computational results show that nozzle wall separation occurs at an early stage of nozzle expansion, near the design nozzle throat, for the course of pintle strokes. Empirical thrust prediction incorporates nozzle wall separation, and thus 1-D simulation using empirical thrust prediction showed good results for an early stage of pintle stroke.