Fabrication of a monopropellant micro-nozzle using Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramics

The need for a simple yet efficient attitude adjustment device for small satellites has become increasingly important as major advances in electronics are rendering large, heavy satellites obsolete. The focus of this research is on the fabrication of a catalyst chamber/nozzle device as well as accurately predicting and measuring its thrust. Fabrication is done using a laser cutting mill to accurately reproduce the converging-diverging nozzle geometry as well as the associated catalyst chamber in LTCC. Using the laser prevents some of the geometrical inconsistencies encountered while using a rotating bit mill. Emphasis is placed on scaling down the nozzle geometries to test for the variation in boundary layer thicknesses. Scaling down the current nozzles substantially reduces the usable thrust and increase the boundary layer thickness. Testing was conducted using nitrogen as the working fluid for the scaling experiments. Due to the small amount of thrust generated, a force amplifying test stand was created to validate the predictions made using the computational fluid dynamics package Fluent. Further experimental validation of the models will be done using a schlieren imaging apparatus.