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

fYear

2013

fDate

20-22 Dec. 2013

Firstpage

2852

Lastpage

2855

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;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Mechatronic Sciences, Electric Engineering and Computer (MEC), Proceedings 2013 International Conference on

Conference_Location

Shengyang

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-2564-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MEC.2013.6885517

Filename

6885517