Title :
A vaporizing water micro-thruster
Author :
Ye, Xiongying ; Tang, Fei ; Ding, Haiqing ; Zhou, Zhaoying
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Precision Instrum., Tsinghua Univ., Beijing, China
Abstract :
Vaporizing water micro-thrusters are fabricated and tested. A single micro-thruster we developed, fabricated by MEMS technologies, consists of a microresistor, a vaporizing chamber, a nozzle, a propellant inlet and a micro channel. The water propellant is fed into the thruster from a propellant tank by capillary force and pressure. The micro-thruster works in a pulse mode. During each period, an electric pulse is applied on the micro-resistor to heat the water in the chamber to vaporize it into high-pressure gas. A thrust is then produced as the gas exits through the nozzle. Test results show that for a single micro-thruster with pulse power of 48 W, the total impulse produced in a second is more than 0.2×10-6 N·s
Keywords :
aerospace propulsion; etching; microfluidics; micromachining; nozzles; vaporisation; 48 W; MEMS fabrication; bulk etching; capillary force; heating resistor; high-pressure gas; micro-propulsion system; micro-satellites; microchannel; microresistor; nozzle; propellant inlet; pulse mode; total impulse; vaporizing chamber; vaporizing water micro-thruster; wire bonding; Aerospace testing; Circuits; Control systems; Micromechanical devices; Microvalves; Propulsion; Resistance heating; Resistors; Silicon; Water heating;
Conference_Titel :
Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, 2000. MEMS 2000. The Thirteenth Annual International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Miyazaki
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-5273-4
DOI :
10.1109/MEMSYS.2000.838493
