Experimental and Numerical Modeling of Rarefied Gas Flows Through Orifices and Short Tubes

Abstract

Flow through circular orifices with thickness-to-diameter ratios varying from 0.015 to 1.2 is studied experimentally and numerically with kinetic and continuum approaches. Helium and nitrogen gases are used in the range of Reynolds numbers from 0.02 to over 700. Good agreement between experimental and numerical results is observed for mass flow and thrust corrected for the experimental facility background pressure. For thick-to-thin orifice ratios of mass flow and thrust vs pressure, a minimum is established. The thick orifice propulsion efficiency is much higher than that of a thin orifice. The effects of edge roundness and surface specularity on a thick orifice specific impulse were found to be relatively small.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 13, 2005
Accession Number
ADA445960

Entities

People

  • A. D. Ketsdever
  • G. N. Markelov
  • N. P. Selden
  • S. F. Gimelshein
  • T. C. Lilly

Organizations

  • University of Southern California

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Boundary Layer
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Equations
  • Experimental Data
  • Flow
  • Fluid Flow
  • Gas Flow
  • Gases
  • Geometry
  • Knudsen Number
  • Mass Flow
  • Monte Carlo Method
  • Radial Velocity
  • Rarefied Gases
  • Reynolds Number
  • Specific Impulse
  • Stagnation Pressure

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Combustion and Flow Dynamics.