Thermal design improvements for 30kWe arcjet engine

Abstract

Two thermal design improvements for 30 kWe arcjet engines are described. A ZrB2 high temperature coating was used to increase the surface emissivity of the nozzle radiating surface, enabling lower temperature operation, which should lead to longer nozzle life. The ZrB2-coated engine operated 120 C cooler than the uncoated baseline engine indicating a 30 percent increase in the surface emissivity. An engine design which has fewer active seals than previous designs and operates at lower overall component temperatures is described. The nozzle on the engine operated at 1950 C at 30 kWe while the baseline engine nozzle reached 2000 C at 23 kWe. The back of the engine was more than a factor of two cooler when compared to the baseline engine.