The elimination of excessive vibration presented by Altitude Simulation Test Facility for low thrust rocket engines.

Roman Ivanovitch Savonov¹; José Nivaldo Hinckel¹; Aguinaldo Martins Serra Junior¹

¹ National Institute For Space Research-INPE

doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-1685

Resumo

The Altitude Simulation Test Facility (ASTF) is directed to carry out the test of the low thrust rocket engines (from 2 up to 20 N). ASTF should allow performing measurement of various features and parameters of thrusters (chamber pressure, mass flow rate of propellants, thrust, etc.) with high precision. Many test of the thrusters have been performed on this test facility, but for some the thrust measurement showed high amplitude oscillations. The amplitude of these oscillations on some test instants exceeded real value of engine force by 70-100%. It implicate on an adequate analysis of the principal characteristics of the rocket thrusters. The modal analysis of system was performed to detect the origin of vibration. The introduction of the viscous damper in the dynamical scheme of the test facility system was proposed as solution of the problem. The optimization analysis of the damping value was performed and project and damper manufacturing was realized. The final test was carried out to compare the response of the initial and modified system.

Palavras-chave: test facility; vibration; thruster; damper