• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.165-172
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• 2022

Pintle injector is the most suitable injector for thrust control because it can control the area of propellant injection. Accordingly, the combustion test of multiple hole pintle injector and continuous type pintle injector was carried out in this paper using liquid oxygen and gas methane. The combustion performance of the two pintles was verified with the characteristic speed efficiency, and the experimental results were compared according to the O/F and combustion chamber pressure and under similar conditions. The efficiency of the multi hole pintle was generally somewhat higher than continuous pintle when pintle opening distance(the area of dispensing oxidizer) was in a 100% thrust condition.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.126-142
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• 2020

This study aims to provide basic design data for a pintle injector and its combustion device through case study on the research and development of combustion devices to which a liquid-liquid pintle injector was applied. From data analysis, it was possible to provide the initial dimension of the combustion chamber and pintle injector based on the engine thrust, and the geometric characteristics of the high-efficiency injector. In addition, the pintle tip heat damage prevention mechanism and materials, face-shutoff pintle injector implementation method, and central propellant selection criteria were summarized. Theses results will be used as basic data for the design criteria of an initial pintle injector combustion device.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.114-120
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• 2015

Effects of injection conditions on a pintle injector which is proper to recent liquid rocket engines requiring low cost, low weight, high efficiency and reusability were studied. The pintle injector with a typical moving pintle was used for atmospheric experiment using water and air. Injection pressures of water were considered 0.5 and 1.0 bar, 0.1 to 1.0 bar for injection pressures of air and 0.2 to 1.0 mm for pintle opening distance. Sauter mean diameters (SMD) of spray was measured at 50 mm distance from a pintle tip and SMD was treated as a representative parameter in this study. As a result, because of shape characteristics of the pintle injector, there was a transient region between the pintle opening distances of 0.6 and 0.7 mm and this region affected to mass flow rates and SMDs. Also, Reynolds numbers for gas, Weber numbers and momentum ratios were adopted as major non-dimensional paramters and the momentum ratio has strong correlation with SMD.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.82-88
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• 2019

Shear coaxial injectors were commonly used in rocket engine combustor. They showed good combustion performance. However it is not easy to control the thrust. Pintle injectors were not as popular as the coaxial injectors so far, they have a great advantage over the coaxial injectors. That is, it is relatively easy to control the thrust. Spray characteristics of gel type propellant from movable sleeve pintle injector were investigated. Water with 0.05% of Carbopol 940 was used as gel simulant instead of kerosene gel combined with Thixarol ST for academic purpose. Experiments were performed in various temperature, pressure and pintle opening condition. The results were compared with neat liquid spray. It is also verified that the capabilites of the injector by adjusting the pintle opening.

• 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 of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1-9
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• 2020

Using kerosene and liquid oxygen, 1.5-tonf class liquid-liquid pintle injector with rectangular two-row orifice was designed and manufactured. The combustion test of the pintle injector was carried out to verify the combustion performance and combustion stability under a supercritical condition which is the actual operation condition of the liquid rocket engine. The combustion test result showed that the pintle tip was damaged by the high temperature combustion gas in the high-mixed ratio recirculation zone of the combustion chamber. To solve this problem, the insert nozzle was installed in the pintle injector to increase cooling performance at the pintle tip. As a result of the hot firing test, installation of the insert nozzle, AR and BF had a great effect on pintle tip cooling performance.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.48 no.9
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• pp.703-709
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• 2020

Pintle injector is known to have been adopted as injector of Lunar Module Descent Engine (LMDE) and contributed to success of the Apollo program and recently used in merlin engine. In this study, 500N Lab-Scale pintle injector thruster was manufactured and the combustion experiment with LOx/GCH4 was conducted. However, the proto-type thruster was showed some problems, such as low combustion efficiency and melting of pintle tip. To solve these problems, the flow guide in pintle tip was suggested through the CFD simulation. After addition of flow guide module, the combustion efficiency increased and pintle tip did not melt until the end of combustion.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.126-131
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• 2020

Throttleable rocket engines are in high demand due to the diversification of space missions. Pintle injector is known to be suitable for throttleable rocket engines, because of its high efficiency in overall thrust zone. In this study, the relationship between spray angle of a throttleable pintle injector and total momentum ratio based on hot fire test conditions was investigated. As a result, the spray angle in 100% and 60% throttling level is higher than the spray angle obtained by the case which considers only propellant mass flow rate, owing to higher total momentum ratio (TMR). The results of this study may be useful for predicting spray angle in hot fire test.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.47 no.9
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• pp.658-664
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• 2019

In the development of the liquid rocket engine using the pintle injector, spray characteristics such as spray angle, droplet size, and distribution of the droplets are dominant parameters. Three different kind of multi hole type pintle tip and a continuous type pintle tip were designed. In the case of multi hole pintle tip, SMD result did not have a significant difference depending on the number of holes. In analysis with visualization images, however, the droplets were uniformly distributed as the number of holes increased. Liquid droplets from continuous type pintle tip were finely atomized and dispersed uniformly than those from multi-hole type pintle tip. In addition, the thrust control by adjusting the liquid injection area of the pintle is suitable for the continuous type, which is easier to face-shutoff rather than the multi hole type. The spray angle of each pintle tip according to TMR was measured to derive a specific tendency and corresponding empirical formula.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.14-25
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• 2021

An experimental study was conducted on the spray characteristics of the pintle injector by opening distance. The discharge coefficient of the pintle injector was investigated and the spray angle was measured by taking the spray image by test conditions. As a result of the measurement of the discharge coefficient, it was confirmed that the change in the discharge coefficient of the outer injector was not significant over the experimental conditions, but the change in the discharge coefficient of the inner injector was decreased as the flow rate increased. Measurement of the spray angle showed that the change in the spray angle was not significant in the conditions under which the spray was fully developed, but the spray was not fully developed at low flow rates. This confirmed the possibility of thrust control using the pintle injector.