Effect of Plate Inclination on Exhaust Plume Impingement Under Low-Pressure Environment
摘要
The exhaust plume, emanating from the spacecraft thruster and composed of hot gases, expansively extends into the vacuum of space, frequently interacting with the spacecraft's structure that are often inclined relative to the thruster. Therefore, the heat flux and pressure resulting from plume impingement on inclined spacecraft surfaces are required to be determined. In this study, we perform steady-state CFD modeling to analyze the plume expansion into vacuum and the effect of plate inclination on the impingement heat flux and pressure. The CFD model incorporates a temperature jump boundary with a partial slip condition at the plate. The investigation is conducted based on the experimental conditions reported in literature. The CFD model with partial slip predicts the peak heat flux within 1% of the reported experimental data. The peak heat flux and pressure are found to reduce significantly as the plate inclination is varied from 0° to 40°.