DUT rocket test facility

The DUT rocket test facility has been specifically developed to allow for development testing of low thrust (up to ~1 N) thermal rockets in an office environment. The DUT rocket test facility is especially suited for development testing of cold gas thrusters, resistojets, and solar thermal rockets. It can be used both to determine steady state thrust as well as pulsed performance. It consists of: Thrust stand Gas supply system Power supply system Measurement system Control and data acquisition system No provisions are incorporated for simulating the space environment and/or altitude. The thrust stand is an instrumented test stand designed to restrain a motor during test and permit thrust measurement, see figure. The thrust stand is horizontally supported. This implies that the reaction forces, due to the varying weight of the motor, and the thrust are orthogonal and hence do not affect each other. As there is only one force link, forces due to thrust misalignment or thrust vector control cannot be measured. To measure the thrust, the test motor is mounted on to the test motor support, which on its turn is connected to the frame by 3 elastic hinges that carry loads in vertical direction and allow freedom of movement in horizontal direction necessary for force measurement. The horizontal force, the thrust, is transmitted to the frame via a ring flexure instrumented with strain gages. The thrust stand allows for thrusters to be mounted of diameter up to 40 mm and length 300 mm. The thrust measurement system presently is capable of measuring thrusts up to 1 N. However, higher thrusts are feasible (depending on calibration settings). The gas supply system provides the test item with the necessary propellant. The system is designed to handle Nitrogen, Helium or Carbon-dioxide gas. It consists of a gas storage tank, a manual shut off valve, a (dis)connect, high-pressure and low-pressure tubing, an adjustable pressure regulator, a shut-off valve, a check valve, a filter, and a mass flow controller, see schematic.
He max. 70 cm

N2

Experiment

CO2

TU-Delft, LR B.T.C. Zandbergen

15-12-2007

The propellant gas is stored in a standard industrial 10 l gas cylinder at a maximum pressure of 200 bar. This cylinder is equipped with a manual valve and has primary and secondary pressure indicators. A disconnect allows easy replacement of the cylinder. A two-stage pressure regulator with integrated relief valve regulates the pressure down to a pressure between 0-10 bar. The first stage reduces the pressure to an intermediate pressure of 20. The second pressure regulator reduces the pressure further to a value in the range 0 - 10 bar. The on/off valve is hand-operated and is used prior and after the test to pressurize the system. The check valve permits flow in one direction only and the filter extracts any contaminations in the flow before the flow reaches the mass flow meter/controller. Two Brooks mass flow meters/controllers are available; one for the range up to and including 41.3 litres per minute nitrogen equivalent and one up to 144 ml per minute nitrogen equivalent. Both controllers have a warm-up time of 10 minutes, which yields 1 % FSO (full scale output) accuracy. For performance within specifications a warm-up time of 45 minutes is required. Several power supplies are available of which 2 Delta Elektronika SM7020-D power units, each capable of delivering a maximum power of 700 W (up to 70V-10 A or 35V-20A). The power can be adjusted by control knobs for voltage and current on the console or remote by computer. The power supply displays voltage and current via a digital display. Precise measurement is by computer. The measurement system allows for thrust, mass flow, pressure, and temperature measurement. Thrust measurement is performed using a dedicated thrust sensor. Calibration allows conversion of the measured output voltage to a thrust using a 4-channel (full bridge) strain-gage conditioner. The system is capable of measuring steady state thrust up to 1 N with an accuracy better than 1% FSO. Impulse bits can be determined for short pulses with durations below about 25 ms as well as for long pulses with pulse durations in excess of 2.5s, depending on the thrust level and the accuracy required.
350 6

300 Thrust thrust (mN) and mass flow (mg/s) 250 Mass flow Pressure

4 200 3 150 2 100 pressure (bar)

50

0 0 20 40 60 80 100 time (sec) 120 140 160 180

0 200

Thrust, mass flow and chamber pressure as recorded during test of micro thruster (after averaging)

The mass flow meter allows for measuring the mass flow with accuracy better than 0.7 % of rate and 0.2 % F.S. The response time is 1 sec. For pressure measurement several electro-mechanical pressure gages with a range up to 10 bar are available. These allow transforming the pressure into a digital output signal. Measurement TU-Delft, LR B.T.C. Zandbergen 15-12-2007

accuracy is equal or better than 0.5% FS. Signal response time is of the order of milliseconds. Temperatures can be measured at various locations using K-type thermocouples. These offer a temperature range in between 273.15 - 1600 K with an accuracy better than 2.5 K (273.15 558.15 K) or 0.75 % of measured value (558.15 1523.15 K). A digital video camera is available to record the test and to film the readings in time. The control and data acquisition system allows for the control of the experiment in time and for the acquisition of measurement data for analysis purposes. It is PC-based and provides: - 8 normally open relay contacts for isolated on/off switching of AC or DC (loads) instruments; - 4 channels to control external devices including programmable power supplies and mass flow controllers with a 14 bit binary resolution. - 16 measurement channels for measuring voltages up to 30 VDC or currents up to 20 mA with a 16 bit binary resolution and a maximum scan rate of 100 kHz (divide by number of channels for scan rate). A desktop PC equipped with LabVIEW is used to apply further processing to the digital data, to graph and store the results, and to provide a control interface. The system also allows for an emergency shut down. Data can also be obtained by hand from meter readings (power, pressure gauge, thermocouples, flow meter, and thrust, and general observations are recorded at various instants in time (via a stop watch)).

TU-Delft, LR B.T.C. Zandbergen

15-12-2007