Heat exchange structure design and overall performance analysis of double-concentrator solar thermal thruster

In this paper, the platelet heat exchanger in the thermal propulsion system of micro satellite with liquefied gas as propellant was designed, the complete gasification and stabilization scheme of propellant was proposed. The unsteady conjugate heat transfer (CHT) characteristics between the heat exchanger and gaseous propellant were analyzed, and the cumulative data of error estimation in the numerical simulation process was provided to ensure the credibility of the results. The CHT computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of the platelet 3D model under steady-state conditions was carried out to find the empirical correlation between the average Nusselt number and the average Reynolds number. A simplified unsteady 1D model of heat exchanger was established by using the loose coupling method based on quasi steady flow field. The results show that the platelet structure could heat the working medium to more than 2379 K with the heat transfer efficiency of 86%, the outlet temperature and heat transfer efficiency of the heat exchanger were maintained at 1871 K and 69% in steady state when the mass flow rate was 1.14e-6 kg/s. The 1D model could accurately reflect the real heat transfer situation to a certain extent, the simulation error was less than 8.5% compared with the 3D model, and the calculation time was greatly shortened, making the adjustment of heat transfer strategy more convenient. Intermittent heat transfer method could keep the outlet gas temperature, thrust and specific impulse of the thruster at a high level to improve the performance of the system. Taking the nanosatellite with a total mass of 7.55 kg and a propellant mass of 0.25 kg as an example, when the duration of valve open time was 1.5s, the velocity increment of the satellite reached 72.21 m/s with the specific impulse of over 2400 m/s, which was twice than that of nanosatellites without heat exchange structure.