Investigation on plume interference effect of solid propellant micro-thruster

The three-dimensional numerical simulation of two-phase plume flow of solid propellant micro-thrusters was developed. Then it was used to investigate the plume interference effect by combining the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method for multi-component gas flow with the two-way coupling model for two-phase rarefied flow. At different space between the two micro-thrusters and different wall temperature,the plume interference effect was analyzed specifically. The results show that under the plume interference effect the gas is compressed and the flow direction is changed,which resulted in the increasing of gas pressure and temperature; solid phase made no significant effect on the flow parameters of gas phase; with the rising of the space between the two micro-thrusters,the maximum pressure decreased and the maximum temperature increased in the domain under the plume interference effect; the wall temperature could influence the temperature of the gas which is extremely close to the wall,but not the gas pressure.