• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.807-815
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• 2017

For liquid rocket engine(LRE)-based space launch vehicles, longitudinal instability, often referred to as the pogo phenomenon in the literature is predicted. In the building block of system-level task, accurate dynamic modeling of a fluid-filled tank is an essential. This paper attempts to apply the virtual mass method that accounts for the interaction of the vehicle structure and the enclosed liquid oxygen to LOX-filled tanks. The virtual mass method is applied in a modal analysis considering the hydroelastic effect of the launch vehicle tank. This method involves an analysis of the fluid in the tank in the form of mass matrix. To verify the accuracy of this method, the experimental modal data of a small hemispherical tank is used. Finally, the virtual mass method is applied to a 1/8-scale space shuttle external tank. In addition, the LOX tank bottom pressure in the external tank model is estimated. The LOX tank bottom pressure is the factor required for the coupling of the LOX tank with the propulsion system. The small hemispherical tank analysis provides relatively accurate results, and the 1/8-scale space shuttle external tank provides reasonable results. The LOX tank bottom pressure is also similar to that in the numerical results of a previous analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.46-52
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• 2017

High-frequency combustion instabilities may occur during the development of feasible engine combustors. These instabilities can result in irreparable damages to the wall of combustors or the degradation of engine performance. So, it is essential to identify injectors that have high stability characteristics during the early stages of development. The objective of present study was to assess the stability of coaxial injectors and an impinging injector with different recess lengths in order to develop stable injectors optimally. Stability margin was evaluated based on the distance from operating condition to the unstable regions. A simulating combustion test method was used to analyze the stability of injectors. A small-scale combustion chamber was designed to simulate the first tangential acoustic mode of the actual combustor. Gaseous oxygen and a mixture of methane and propane were used as simulant propellants to satisfy their flow similarity to the actual propellants of a combustor in a liquid rocket combustor. The results indicated that injectors having small recess lengths showed relatively large combustion stability margins. For the injectors of large recess lengths, instability regions with large and super-large amplitude oscillations were observed. Thus, injector with shorter recess lengths had a higher stability than that of longer one due to the different mixing processes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.1-2
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• 2011

Hybrid rockets have lately attracted attention as a strong candidate of small, low cost, safe and reliable launch vehicles. A significant topic is that the first commercially sponsored space ship, SpaceShipOne vehicle chose a hybrid rocket. The main factors for the choice were safety of operation, system cost, quick turnaround, and thrust termination. In Japan, five universities including Hokkaido University and three private companies organized "Hybrid Rocket Research Group" from 1998 to 2002. Their main purpose was to downsize the cost and scale of rocket experiments. In 2002, UNISEC (University Space Engineering Consortium) and HASTIC (Hokkaido Aerospace Science and Technology Incubation Center) took over the educational and R&D rocket activities respectively and the research group dissolved. In 2008, JAXA/ISAS and eleven universities formed "Hybrid Rocket Research Working Group" as a subcommittee of the Steering Committee for Space Engineering in ISAS. Their goal is to demonstrate technical feasibility of lowcost and high frequency launches of nano/micro satellites into sun-synchronous orbits. Hybrid rockets use a combination of solid and liquid propellants. Usually the fuel is in a solid phase. A serious problem of hybrid rockets is the low regression rate of the solid fuel. In single port hybrids the low regression rate below 1 mm/s causes large L/D exceeding a hundred and small fuel loading ratio falling below 0.3. Multi-port hybrids are a typical solution to solve this problem. However, this solution is not the mainstream in Japan. Another approach is to use high regression rate fuels. For example, a fuel regression rate of 4 mm/s decreases L/D to around 10 and increases the loading ratio to around 0.75. Liquefying fuels such as paraffins are strong candidates for high regression fuels and subject of active research in Japan too. Nakagawa et al. in Tokai University employed EVA (Ethylene Vinyl Acetate) to modify viscosity of paraffin based fuels and investigated the effect of viscosity on regression rates. Wada et al. in Akita University employed LTP (Low melting ThermoPlastic) as another candidate of liquefying fuels and demonstrated high regression rates comparable to paraffin fuels. Hori et al. in JAXA/ISAS employed glycidylazide-poly(ethylene glycol) (GAP-PEG) copolymers as high regression rate fuels and modified the combustion characteristics by changing the PEG mixing ratio. Regression rate improvement by changing internal ballistics is another stream of research. The author proposed a new fuel configuration named "CAMUI" in 1998. CAMUI comes from an abbreviation of "cascaded multistage impinging-jet" meaning the distinctive flow field. A CAMUI type fuel grain consists of several cylindrical fuel blocks with two ports in axial direction. The port alignment shifts 90 degrees with each other to make jets out of ports impinge on the upstream end face of the downstream fuel block, resulting in intense heat transfer to the fuel. Yuasa et al. in Tokyo Metropolitan University employed swirling injection method and improved regression rates more than three times higher. However, regression rate distribution along the axis is not uniform due to the decay of the swirl strength. Aso et al. in Kyushu University employed multi-swirl injection to solve this problem. Combinations of swirling injection and paraffin based fuel have been tried and some results show very high regression rates exceeding ten times of conventional one. High fuel regression rates by new fuel, new internal ballistics, or combination of them require faster fuel-oxidizer mixing to maintain combustion efficiency. Nakagawa et al. succeeded to improve combustion efficiency of a paraffin-based fuel from 77% to 96% by a baffle plate. Another effective approach some researchers are trying is to use an aft-chamber to increase residence time. Better understanding of the new flow fields is necessary to reveal basic mechanisms of regression enhancement. Yuasa et al. visualized the combustion field in a swirling injection type motor. Nakagawa et al. observed boundary layer combustion of wax-based fuels. To understand detailed flow structures in swirling flow type hybrids, Sawada et al. (Tohoku Univ.), Teramoto et al. (Univ. of Tokyo), Shimada et al. (ISAS), and Tsuboi et al. (Kyushu Inst. Tech.) are trying to simulate the flow field numerically. Main challenges are turbulent reaction, stiffness due to low Mach number flow, fuel regression model, and other non-steady phenomena. Oshima et al. in Hokkaido University simulated CAMUI type flow fields and discussed correspondence relation between regression distribution of a burning surface and the vortex structure over the surface.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.55-63
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• 2012

The turbulent flow characteristics in a coaxial injector were investigated by the nonlinear $k-{\varepsilon}-f_{\mu}$ model of Park et al.[1] and large eddy simulation (LES). In order to analyze the geometric effects on the scalar mixing for nonreacting variable-density flows, several recessed lengths and momentum flux ratios are selected at a constant Reynolds number. The nonlinear $k-{\varepsilon}-f_{\mu}$�� model proposed the meaningful characteristics for various momentum flux ratios and recess lengths. The LES results showed the changes of small-scale structures by the recess. When the inner jet was recessed, the development of turbulent kinetic energy became faster than that of non-recessed case. Also, the mixing characteristics were mainly influenced by the variation of shear rates, but the local mixing was changed by the adoption of recess.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.3-6
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• 2007

Korea Aerospce Research Institute(KARI) has been developing the first civilian rocket, Korea space launch vehicle (KSLV-I), which can put the small size satellite into designated orbit. Developing launch vehicles contains a lot of uncertainty due to large scale, complexity, and technical difficulty. The uncertainty may become risk in the areas of business and technology which causes schedule delay, cost increase, and design changes of subsystems and components. This study describes the technical risk identification methods using FTA and procedures of planning and implementation of risk assessment and reduction of launch vehicle propulsion system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.353-357
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• 2005

LOx post damage occurs from the development process of the full-scale gas generator which is necessary to 30 tonf class engine development was described. The cause and analysis for damage was described. The combustion test result of 4 injector, the full-scale gas generator and redesigned injector was described. Combustion instability, purge, the low momentum of LOx spray, small recess number, the low flow of LOx, and the high spray angle is main reason the possibility of knowing. The redesign for the injector in the direction of increase of recess number, increase of LOx and fuel spray angle, decrease of gap interval between the LOx post outer wall and fuel screen and increase of LOx post wall thick became accomplished.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.622-627
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• 2017

In this study, the numerical analysis of propellant supply manifold of a sub-scale model combustor with the same combustion and acoustic resonance conditions as the real combustor was carried out. The analysis of the results is based on the shape of the manifold and the number and type of inflow channels. The manifold form of the main propellant was rounded so that the recirculation area was small and easy to manufacture. The liquid oxygen mainfold included a distributor to uniformly supply the flow, and since the kerosene manifold was directly in contact with the flame side, the inflow channel was formed at a radial $360^{\circ}$ so as to minimize the recirculation region. The liquid nitrogen manifold was configured as a radial inflow channel to reduce the velocity difference near the injector.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.44 no.7
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• pp.585-592
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• 2016

Visualization was done by using $CH^*$ chemiluminescence images and PMT measurements in order to understand the origin of fluctuating pressure and chemical luminosity at about 500 Hz frequency even in stable combustion, which was observed in recent experimental tests, and to find the physical correlation leading to Low Frequency Instability(LFI) in terms of phase angle. In stable combustion, chemical reactions are distributed along the shear layer flow showing a negative coupling(about 180 degree in phase angle) with combustion pressure. However, phase difference is shifted to a positive coupling showing less than 90 degree in unstable case. Also a periodic change in the distribution of chemical reactions is observed along with local flame extinction and the appearance of big scale vortex flow. In the transition to LFI, local flame extinction and small vortex flow start to appear in a row. As seen in the bluff body wake in reactive flow, the periodic appearance of vortex flow seems to share the same physical process of BVK(Bernard Von Karman) instability generation. Thus, the appearance of local extinction in 500 Hz fluctuations is gradually amplified to complete extinctions of about 20 Hz, and it leads into LFI.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.172-178
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• 2009

Nanoparticles are small-scale substances (<100 nm) with unique properties, complex exposure and health risk implications. Aluminum oxide ($Al_2O_3$) nanoparticles (NP) have been widely used as abrasives, wear-resistant coatings on propeller shafts of ships, to increase the specific impulse per weight of composite propellants used in solid rocket fuel and as drug delivery systems to increase solubility. However, recent studies have shown that nano-sized aluminum (10 nm in diameter) can generate adverse effects, such as pulmonary response. The cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of $Al_2O_3$ NP were investigated using the dye exclusion assay, the comet assay, and the mouse lymphoma thymidine kinase (tk$^{+/-}$) gene mutation assay (MLA). IC$_{20}$ values of $Al_2O_3$ NP in BEAS-2B cells were determined the concentration of 273.44 $\mu$g/mL and 390.63 $\mu$g/mL with and without S-9. However IC$_{20}$ values of $Al_2O_3$ NP were found nontoxic in L5178Y cells both of with and without S-9 fraction. In the comet assay, L5178Y cells and BEAS-2B cells were treated with $Al_2O_3$ NP which significantly increased 2-fold tail moment with and without S-9. Also, the mutant frequencies in the $Al_2O_3$ NP treated L5178Y cells were increased compared to the vehicle controls with S-9. The results of this study indicate that $Al_2O_3$ NP can cause primary DNA damage and cytotoxicity but not mutagenicity in cultured mammalian cells.