Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Guernsey, C. S..
This paper presents an overview of the potential failure modes identified by the JPL review board and presents evidence, discovered after the failure reviews were complete, that the loss was very likely due to the use of an incompatible braze material in the flow restriction orifice of the pressure regulator.
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A Mars ascent propulsion system trade study was conducted to determine 1) what propulsion technologies allow a Mars sample return mission to be launched on a Delta III class launch verhicle, and 2) whether more exotic technologies, such as in-situ propellant production, allow major cost savings by enabling the use of a smaller launch vehicle or a direct return from the Martian surface to Earth without the need of a rendezvous in the Martian orbit.
This paper describes efforts to quantify the contaminant flow field produced by 10 N thrust bipropellant rocket engines used on the Galileo spacecraft. The prediction of the composition of the rocket exhaust by conventional techniques is found to be inadequate to explain experimental observations of contaminant deposition on moderately cold (200 K) surfaces. It is hypothesized that low volatility contaminants are formed by chemical reactions which occur on the surfaces. The flow field calculations performed using the direct simulation Monte Carlo method give the expected result that the use of line-of-sight plume shields may have very little effect on the flux of vapor phase contaminant species to a surface, especially if the plume shields are located so close to the engine that the interaction of the plume with the shield is in the transition flow regime. It is shown that significant variations in the exhaust plume composition caused by nonequilibrium effects in the flow field lead to very low concentrations of species which have high molecular weights in the more rarefied regions of the flow field. Recommendations for the design of spacecraft plume shields and further work are made.
The plume flowfield of a helium vent nozzle exhausting into a vacuum is defined by two techniques: the method of characteristics and the direct-simulation Monte Carlo method. The method of characteristics is shown to severely underpredict gas static temperatures due to the assumption of translational equilibrium inherent in the continuum formulation. Mass flow per unit solid angle is shown to be accurately predicted for this flowfield by the method of characteristics until the flow angle approaches within 10 deg of the maximum Prandtl-Meyer expansion angle. Improved treatment of the noncontinuum flow within the nozzle (near the lip) is postulated to have minor effects on the accuracy of this continuum method in comparison with translational nonequilibrium in the external flowfield. Possible treatment of translational nonequilibrium by the method of characteristics is discussed.
A quick-look method has been developed for estimating convective heat flux due to plume impingement in the transition flow regime on a concave surface surrounding a rocket nozzle. Comparison with the flowfield and heat fluxes computed by the Monte Carlo Direct Simulation Method show the quick-look method to be conservative. Assumptions regarding the nature of the flowfield based on engineering judgment were shown to be essentially valid. Further, the assumption of free molecular impingement was shown to be non-conservative for portions of the surface. Potential refinements of the quick-look method are discussed.