Title :
Numerical study on gas-liquid separation performance of spiral pipe used in on-orbit refueling
Author :
Cunyan Cui ; Pingjun Si ; Hua Wang ; Wenxian Yan ; Wei Li ; Jian Sun
Author_Institution :
Acad. of Equip., Beijing, China
Abstract :
Gas-liquid separation technology is a key part for such propellant resupply on orbit because of the microgravity condition. A new gas-liquid separation device used a simple spiral pipe is designed to provide gas-free propellant to the receiver tank. The two-phase flow in spiral pipe is simulated to study the effect of different inflow velocities on its separation performance using certain commercial calculation software. The results show that the liquid volume fraction after being separating can be more than 96%. And it has higher gas-liquid separation performance in resisting impact than that of some surface-tension tank which would be failure if the impact acceleration is more than 10-4g.
Keywords :
aerospace propulsion; computational fluid dynamics; flow separation; flow simulation; numerical analysis; pipe flow; propellants; space vehicles; tanks (containers); two-phase flow; vehicle dynamics; commercial calculation software; gas-free propellant; gas-liquid separation device; gas-liquid separation performance; impact acceleration; inflow velocity; liquid volume fraction; microgravity condition; numerical study; on-orbit refueling; propellant resupply; receiver tank; spiral pipe; surface-tension tank; two-phase flow simulation; Acceleration; Computational modeling; Liquids; Mathematical model; Propulsion; Space vehicles; Spirals; microgravity; numerical simulation; on-orbit resupply; spiral gas-liquid separation;
Conference_Titel :
Mechatronic Sciences, Electric Engineering and Computer (MEC), Proceedings 2013 International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Shengyang
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4799-2564-3
DOI :
10.1109/MEC.2013.6885517
