Validation and Design Optimization for a Hydrogen Peroxide Thruster

Hydrogen peroxide is one (of several) green propellant candidates that are being considered as alternatives to the toxic propellants currently in common use on spacecraft secondary propulsion systems. In order to optimise the design of propulsive systems using hydrogen peroxide, there is a need to gain further insight into, and modelling of, the decomposition processes that take place within a heterogeneous catalyst bed. This paper describes the validation of a two-fluid, simple flow, model of these processes with a pellettype of catalyst, which has shown that the model is in good agreement with experimental data. A parametric study of the bed-to-pellet diameter ratio on bed performance has been carried out to illustrate how the model might be used to optimise design.