• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.14-21
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• 2010

Ion thruster is a kind of electrostatic thruster that use electrostatic field in order to accelerate ionized propellant. Ion thruster have characteristics of small thrust but very high specific impulse among the electric thrusters. High specific impulse can reduce propellant consumption significantly. So, ion thruster have advantage for long time and long distance mission. Recently, plans for space exploration is increasing gradually not only at traditional forward countries for space like USA, Russia and Europe, but also other countries like Japan, China and India. Exploration for superior planets and asteroids the propellant ratio can go up to about 99% when chemical propulsion is used as a cruising thruster. Therefore, latest space exploration vehicles use the ion thruster as main thruster for del-V burn and use monopropellant thrusters for attitude control. In this paper, the development process of preliminary ECR ion thruster and the ECR discharge test results will be presented.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.84-89
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• 2011

A Xenon Feed System (XFS) has been developed for hall-effect thruster to small satellite space-propulsion system applications. The XFS delivers low pressure gas to the Anode and Cathode of thruster head unit from a xenon storage tank. Accurate throttling of the propellant mass flow rate is independently required for each channel of the thruster head unit. The mass flow rate to each channel is controlled using the accumulator tank pressure regulation through a micron orifice and isolation valve. This paper discusses the Xenon Feed System design including the component selections, performance estimation and functional test.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.12-22
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• 1999

Operation of an electromagnetic shaker system using a Class-D amplifier may cause unacceptable electromagnetic interference to another electronic system, requiring the user to take whatever steps are necessary to correct the interference. A differential amplifier in a Class-D amplifier is used to decrease the effect of a common-mode noise voltage in a shaker system. To prevent a ground loop, a transformer is inserted in another shaker system. These methods show reduction of the unwanted vibration which has occurred before. A transformer in a charge amplifier was used to prevent a ground loop in a shaker system using a Class-AB amplifier a few years ago, but it was susceptible of noise in a shaker system using a Class-D amplifier. Hence we corrected a ground loop between a charge amplifier and a vibration control/analysis system without a transformer. The usefulness of this approach is illustrated by the results of experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.52-58
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• 2007

The irregular fuel surface was observed by the visualization of hybrid rocket combustion. Even though the test condition maintained oxidizer rich environment, the irregular dark fuel surface was formed as the result of incomplete combustion. In order to investigate the correlation of the characteristics of oxidizer flow and the irregular fuel surface, various flow conditions were imposed such as swirl flow, induced swirl flow by helical fuel configuration and straight flow. Test results revealed no correlation was found between oxidizer flow condition and irregular fuel surface. And this can be a commonly observed phenomena in the tests with different fuel/oxidizer combination. Thus, the irregular fuel surface can be a result of the interaction of blowing flow of vaporized fuel and the boundary layer of oxidizer flow. A further study will be required to confirm the assumption for the formation of irregular fuel surface.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.69-76
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• 2015

Recently, environmental sustainability of the transitional explosives and propellants is an issue of growing importance in energetic materials. For examples, ammonium perchlorate(AP) as an solid propellants oxidizer could create a poisonous gas and atmospheric pollutions, such as HCl. Among the several oxidizers, hydrazinium nitroformate(HNF) is an effective candidate substance for eco-friendly oxidizer, which has high density, pressure index, and less smog generating property during combustion for the Divert and Attitude Control System(DACS). This study was confirmed a synthesis through various conditions, was performed for the essential data of solubility the crystallization process. Also, crystallization process such as cooling, drowning-out and sonication were performed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.247-253
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• 2011

An experimental study on performance characteristics of an evaporative heat exchanger based on tests for various operating conditions was presented. The heat exchanger maximizes the heat transfer rate per unit volume by applying mini-channels for both the air and coolant flow paths, and minimizes the amount of the coolant by using its latent heat of evaporation. The heat exchanger was manufactured by etching the flow paths, brazing the heat exchange plates, and welding the in/out ports of the media. The basic performance test has confirmed that the heat exchanger met its design requirements, and the results of the map test were analyzed to produce the performance characteristics quantitatively depending on the air inlet temperature, the air flow rate, and the coolant flow rate.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.336-339
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• 2011

Hot-fire test facility is one of the most important infrastructure for thruster development and evaluation. During the past three years, Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) and Hanwha Corporation have successfully performed the construction of hot-fire test facility for medium-scale monopellant thruster to the maximum 200N thrust level. In general, thruster hot-firing test should be performed in vacuum conditions to simulate space environment. The hot-fire test facility is divided into three subsystems, vacuum system, propellant supply system and data measurement & control system. The goal of this facility is to extend the capability from small thruster for satellite mission to medium-scale thruster for launch vehicle and lunar mission. In this paper, the progress and overview for thruster hot-fire test facility was introduced and test results were also presented.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.53-59
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• 2010

This research aims in finding a more optimal ejector size for evacuating engine exhaust gasses and 20% of the cell cooling air. The remaining 80% of cell cooling air pumped into the test chamber is separately exhausted from the test chamber via a discharge port fitted with flow control valves and vacuum pump. Unlike its predecessor this configuration utilizes a smaller capture area to improve pressure recovery. The modified ejector size has a diameter of 1100mm enough to evacuate 66kg/s jet engine exhaust in addition to about 20%, 24kg/s of the cell cooling air tapped from the sterling chamber. This configurations has an area ratio of the engine exit and ejector inlet of about 1.2. Simulation results of the proposed ejector configuration, indicates improved pressure recovery.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.1-6
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• 2009

A development of a composite solid propellant is carried out for an application to gas generators as an energy source of rocket system. With HTPB as a propellant binder which has 80% of particle loading ratio, a favorable rheology, and moderate curing properties at the range of $-50^{\circ}{\sim}70^{\circ}C$, AN is selected as the first kind of oxidizer having the characteristics of a low flame temperature, minimal particle residual as well as nontoxic products. AP is the second oxidant for ballistic property control. A series of experiments for the improvement of physical properties were conducted and resulted in the propellant formulation having 30% of strain rate at 8 bar of max. stress.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• v.1
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• pp.21-24
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• 2006

Processes controlling the interannual variation of mixed layer temperature (MLT) averaged over the NINO3 domain ($150-90^{\circ}W$, $5^{\circ}N-5^{\circ}S$) are studied using an ocean data assimilation product that covers the period of 1993 to 2003. Advective tendencies are estimated here as the temperature fluxes through the domain's boundaries, with the boundary temperature referenced to the domain-averaged temperature to remove the dependence on temperature scale. The overall balance is such that surface heat flux opposes the MLT change but horizontal advection and subsurface processes assist the change. The zonal advective tendency is caused primarily by large-scale advection of warm-pool water through the western boundary of the domain. The meridional advective tendency is contributed mostly by Ekman current advecting large-scale temperature anomalies though the southern boundary of the domain. Unlike many previous studies, we explicitly evaluate the subsurface processes that consist of vertical mixing and entrainment. In particular, a rigorous method to estimate entrainment allows an exact budget closure. The vertical mixing across the mixed layer (ML) base has a contribution in phase with the MLT change. The entrainment tendency due to temporal change in ML depth is negligible comparing to other subsurface processes. The entrainment tendency by vertical advection across the ML base is dominated by large-scale changes in wind-driven upwelling and temperature of upwelling water. Tropical instability waves (TIWs) result in smaller-scale vertical advection that warms the domain during La Ni? cooling events. When the advective tendencies are evaluated by spatially averaging the conventional local advective tendencies of temperature, the apparent effects of currents with spatial scales smaller than the domain (such as TIWs) become very important as they redistribute heat within the NINO3 domain. However, such internal redistribution of heat does not represent external processes that control the domain-averaged MLT.