• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.11-14
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• 2009

The implementation of gelled propellants systems offers high performance, thrust-control, energy management of propulsion, storability, and high density impulse of solid propulsion. Present study focused on the spray behavior of liquid sheets formed by impinging jets of non-Newtonian liquids which are mixed by Carbopol 941 0.5%wt. The results are then compared with experiments conducted on spray images formed by impinging jets concerning with air-blast effect at center orifice. When gel propellants are injected by doublet impinging jets at low pressure, closed rim pattern shape appeared. As increasing air mass flow rate(decreasing GLR), spray breakup and atomization phenomenon better improved and spray structure instabilities for the effect of air-blast are also increased.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.168-171
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• 2007

A technical review of current slurry and gelled propellants is presented. In advanced countries, it is confirmed that these propellants have high specific impulse, density, excellent handling, safety characteristics and thrust controllability through research since 1950s. Substantial researches have been pursued to characterize the rheological properties, spray/combustion phenomena and propulsion system design for the gel propellant characteristics. Slurry and gelled propellants are developing actively to applicate both military and space propulsion fields such as tactical missile, air-breathing ramjet, pulse detonation engine, and combined cycle engine of future propulsion mode.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.140-145
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• 2011

Gelled propellants are non-Newtonian fluids in which the viscosity is a function of the shear rate, and they have a high dynamic shear viscosity which depends on the amount of gelling agent contents. The present study has focused on the breakup process, wave development of ligament and liquid sheets formed by impinging jets with various gelling agent contents. The breakup process of like-on-like doublet impinging jets are experimentally characterized using non-Newtonian liquids. The spray shape with elliptical pattern is distributed in a perpendicular direction to the momentum vectors of the jets. Gelled propellant simulants with high viscosity jets are more stable and produce less pronounced surface waves than low viscosity jets. Gelled propellant simulants from like-on-like doublet impinging jets have the spray shape of closed rim patterns at low pressure. As the injection pressure increased, rimless patterns which were composed of ligament sheets and small droplets emerged due to the effect of the aerodynamic action.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.1-11
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• 2020

In this study, a hot-firing test of a lab-scale gel rocket motor using liquid kerosene and gelled kerosene as fuel was performed in order to analyze the discrepancy of the static and dynamic pressure between the two fuels. The static pressure, characteristic velocity, and characteristic velocity efficiency of the liquid kerosene and gelled kerosene did not show any significant difference. However, in the case of dynamic pressure characteristics, the pressure oscillation amplitude in a specific high frequency region of the gelled kerosene demonstrated a significantly higher amplitude than liquid kerosene case. This is considered to be the effect of an intrinsic combustion mechanism of the gel propellant, and it can be postulated that this may act as a dominant factor influencing the high frequency combustion instability of the gel rocket motor.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.10-17
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• 2021

In this study, cold-flow test of simulant gel is conducted using a pressure swirl injector to identify spray characteristics according to gellant weight percent. Experiment results show the aircore is developed locally at the nozzle and expanded to the entire swirl chamber as the supply pressure increases. The aircore formation of simulant gel showed no significant difference compared to Newtonian fluid. The spray pattern was classified into four distinct shapes where relationship between the breakup regimes and dimensionless numbers were investigated. In the future, additional study is necessary to understand the aircore formation mechanism, stability and spray characteristics at different configuration of the swirl chamber shape.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.73-79
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• 2021

This study was carried out to analyze the properties of the gel propellant and spray characteristics according to the addition of fine particles. The multi-hole diameter was 0.4 mm to induce a high shear rate, and a kerosene gel propellant was prepared using 5 wt% of the Thixatrol ST and SUS304 of 100 nm. The experiment was conducted by fixing the supply pressure in the axial direction to 0.7 MPa and adjusting the supply pressure in the radial direction from 0.7 MPa to 2.1 MPa. Due to the addition of fine particles, pressure vibration during spraying, a small TMR(Total Momentum Ratio) of up to 0.19, and a phenomenon that the spraying angle rapidly increased to more than 70 degrees occurred.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.365-368
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• 2009

A new concept of a small thruster for altitude control of a micro/nano class satellite is developed, which utilizes the pulsed laser energy. As the laser-based thruster does not require burning of any fuel, it gives promise of small satellite design criteria, namely light weight and cost effectiveness. In this paper, we develop gel-type material for generating strong plasma plume for enhancing thrust for propulsion. Moreover, we quantify the level of thrust via the momentum coupling coefficient measured by the pendulum system. We discover that the driving force is significantly improved via the gel-typed propellant for laser ablation.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.284-290
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• 2020

Energetic thermoplastic elastomers (ETPEs) based on glycidyl azide polymer (GAP) and carboxylated GA copolymers [GAP-ETPE and poly(GA-carboxylate)-ETPEs] were synthesized using isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI), dibutyltin dilaurate (DBTDL), 1,4-butanediol (1,4-BD), and soft segment oligomers such as GAP and poly(GA-carboxylate). The synthesized GAP-ETPE and poly(GA-carboxylate)-ETPEs were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), gel permeation chromatography (GPC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), universal testing machine (UTM), calorimetry and sensitivity towards friction and impact. DSC and TGA results showed that the introduction of carboxylate group in GAP helped to have better thermal properties. Glass transition temperatures of poly(GA-carboxylate)-ETPEs decreased from -31 ℃ to -33 ℃ compared to that of GAP-ETPE (-29 ℃). The first thermal decomposition temperature in poly(GA_0.8-octanoate_0.2)-ETPE (242 ℃) increased in comparison to that of GAP-ETPE (227 ℃). Furthermore, from calorimetry data, poly(GA-carboxylate)-ETPEs exhibited negative formation enthalpies (-6.94 and -7.21 kJ/g) and higher heats of combustion (46713 and 46587 kJ/mol) compared to that of GAP-ETPE (42,262 kJ/mol). Overall, poly(GA-carboxylate)-ETPEs could be good candidates for a polymeric binder in solid propellant due to better energetic, mechanical and thermal properties in comparison to those of GAP-ETPE. Such properties are beneficial to application and processing of ETPE.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.469-473
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• 2017

In this study, the rheological characteristics of kerosene based gel propellants were investigated. For the gelling agent, Thixatrol$^{(R)}$ has been used with 100 nm nano-sized aluminium particle addition. Three gellant contents of 2.5 wt%, 5 wt% and 7.5 wt% kerosene gels were first investigated where aluminium particles contents of 10 wt% and 20 wt% were added to 7.5 wt% gellant case. The viscosities of each sample measured by rotational rheometer show that the viscosity augments as gellant or aluminium content increases while the 20 wt% aluminum content resulted in failure of measurement due to the agglomerations of aluminum particles.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.81-87
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• 2019

In this study, synthetic methods and physical properties for a new class of glycidyl azide polymer (GAP) were investigated for energetic thermoplastic elastomers (ETPE). Four kinds of GAP copolymer polyols were synthesized by introducing nucleophiles such as azide, alkoxide and alkyl amine into poly(epichlorohydrin) (PECH). The GAP copolymer synthetic reaction can be evaluated as an environmental benign and efficient synthetic method due to the simultaneous one-step reaction using two kinds of nucleophiles and the complete consumption of sodium azide. The relative stoichiometric substitution ratio analysis and the progress of reaction were checked and monitored by inverse gated decoupled $^{13}C$ NMR and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The glass transition temperature and molecular weight were measured by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and gel permeation chromatography (GPC) analysis. The synthesized poly($GA_{0.8}-butoxide_{0.2}$), poly($GA_{0.7}-n-butylamine_{0.3}$), poly($GA_{0.7}-dipropylamine_{0.3}$) and poly($GA_{0.7}-morpholine_{0.3}$) had a glass transition temperature ranged from -39 to $-26^{\circ}C$.