Propulsion and Power Commons^™

Effect Of Anode Size On The Properties Of Constricted Hollow Anode Pulsed Plasma Source, Nirav Patel, Garret Seckinger

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

With the advent of ion thrusters, burns requiring large velocity changes can be performed with a fraction of the propellant required by traditional chemical rocket engines. However, current ion thrusters produce thrust in the order of millinewtons and thus cannot be viable for launching vehicles or burns requiring velocity changes in a small amount of time. Furthermore, current ion thrusters experience grid and component erosion, where the two grids at the termination of the nozzle slowly erode due to particle impact, and the hot electrodes degrade due to high thermal load. This limits the life of ion engines, which require …

Measurements And Scaling Of Ion Propulsion Impulse During Driven Magnetic Reconnection, Fatima Ebrahimi, Nicholas A. O'Gorman, Kush Maheshwari, Jongsoo Yoo, Alexandre Sainterme, Hantao Ji

Faculty Publications

Impulse scaling during magnetic reconnection, the magnetic energy conversion to kinetic energy, via direct Mach probe measurements in Magnetic Reconnection Experiment is examined. Ion exhaust velocity and impulse scalings with reconnecting magnetic field during the push phase of driven reconnection are presented. The outflows and impulse measurements are compared with global MHD simulations. Both measurements and simulations reveal a favorable scaling, greater than linear, of impulse with reconnecting field. These scaling results establish that magnetic reconnection could be utilized for plasma propulsion.

Design Of An Active-Control Pressure Regulator For A Rocket, Seth Arkwright

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

An electronically actuated pressure-regulation valve and controller are necessary for maintaining pressure levels in a pressure-fed liquid-fueled rocket engine. Mechanical regulators are too heavy and have unacceptably high-pressure variation throughout the operation of a dynamic system like a rocket. Developing an electronic pressure regulator using a PID controller is a method by which a reliable, accurate, and lightweight flow regulator can be built for use on a rocket vehicle. This work will outline the development of flow simulations, PID controller, physical valve hardware, and initial testing.

Flame Boundary Effects Of Hydrogen-Air Premixing, Alecson L. De Lima Junior

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The objective of this research was to investigate the reaction of hydrogen and heated air premixing when injected into a combusting ethylene-air crossflow, and to study the flame stabilization location with varying premixing levels. The main parameter of this investigation was the flame stabilization diagnosed through chemiluminescence, based on recorded equivalence ratio, temperature, and flame boundaries, and maintaining a constant air temperature, hydrogen and air mass flow, and momentum flux ratios. Testing was conducted at different ratios of hydrogen and air premixing achieved through alternating the distance between the point where hydrogen and air are mixed and the combusting crossflow. …

The Space Rescue Professional: Operationalizing Guardians For The Future, Benjamin Johnis, Robert Bettinger, James Dean

Faculty Publications

The escalating competition in space exploration demands a dedicated space rescue capability. This article argues for the establishment of a space rescue professional (SRP) career field within the Department of Defense and the US Space Force. By harnessing existing US Air Force combat rescue expertise and partnering with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Space Force can rapidly develop a robust SRP program with the warrant officer corps as its backbone. This article addresses a critical gap in national space policy to outline a cost-effective dual-service training pipeline and SRP operational roles. Such an investment safeguards astronauts, bolsters US …

Kwad - Ksu All Weather Autonomous Drone, Nick Farinacci, Sebastian Gomez, Stewart Baker, Ed Sheridan

Symposium of Student Scholars

"KWAD" or "KSU all-Weather Autonomous Drone" project was sponsored by Ultool, LLC to the KSU Research and Service Foundation to create a lightweight drone capable of capturing HD video during all-weather operations. The conditions of all-weather operation include rainfall of one inch per hour and wind speeds of up to twenty miles per hour. In addition, a global minimum structural safety factor of two is required to ensure the system's integrity in extreme weather conditions. Potential mission profiles include autonomous aerial delivery, topological mapping in high moisture areas, security surveillance, search and rescue operations, emergency transportation of medical supplies, and …

Crazyflie 2.1 Quadcopter Nonlinear System Identification, Nhat V. Nguyen, Hope Storro, John Plimpton

2023 Symposium

Quadcopters (quad) are used widely in many industries with crucial applications such as infrastructure inspection or package delivery. The Crazyflie 2.1 quad from Bitcraze provides an excellent platform for research and development. In this project, our goal is to perform system identification on the Crazyflie to propose a complete model. A gray box method is explored, which includes leveraging the parameters that are already known, to develop a set of equations. Through theory, simulations, and measurements, a complete quadcopter model is developed.

Simulating Dielectric Barrier Plasma Actuators With Varying Geometries, Cass Wiederkehr

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The idea of Ionic Wind Propulsion has long been a topic of research for whether or not it can be used as a practical power source for flight. MIT researchers proved in 2018 that a plane with zero moving parts powered by Ionic Wind Propulsion was possible, and sustained flight could work with an internal power supply. However, due to the thin wire electrodes required to generate the ion cloud that made such propulsion possible, large amounts of drag rendered the plane extremely inefficient and impractical. Dielectric Barrier Discharge Devices (DBDs) are being investigated as to whether they can serve …

Design And Implementation Of High-Efficiency, Lightweight, System-Friendly Solid-State Circuit Breaker, Dehao Qin

All Dissertations

Direct current (DC) distribution system has shown potential over the alternative current (AC) distribution system in some application scenarios, e.g., electrified transportation, renewable energy, data center, etc. Because of the fast response speed, DC solid-state circuit breaker (SSCB) becomes a promising technology for the future power electronics intensive DC energy system with fault-tolerant capability. First, a thorough literature survey is performed to review the DC-SSCB technology. The key components for DC-SSCB, including power semiconductors, topologies, energy absorption units, and fault detection circuits, are studied. It is observed that the prior studies mainly focus on the basic interruption capability of the …

Controller Platform Design And Demonstration For An Electric Aircraft Propulsion Driv, Rosten Sweeting

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the growth in the aerospace industry there has been a trend to optimize the performance of an aircraft by reducing fuel consumption and operational cost. Recent advancements in the field of power electronics have pushed towards the concepts of hybrid electric aircraft also known as more electrical aircrafts. In this work, a custom controller board for an electric aircraft propulsion drive was designed to drive a permanent magnet synchronous motor. Design of the controller board required knowledge of the topology selection and power module selections. Simulations of the system were performed using MATLAB/Simulink to analyze the overall performance of …

Electric Power Systems And Components For Electric Aircraft, Damien Lawhorn

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Electric aircraft have gained increasing attention in recent years due to their potential for environmental and economic benefits over conventional airplanes. In order to offer competitive flight times and payload capabilities, electric aircraft power systems (EAPS) must exhibit extremely high efficiencies and power densities. While advancements in enabling technologies have progressed the development of high performance EAPS, further research is required.

One challenge in the design of EAPS is determining the best topology to be employed. This work proposes a new graph theory based method for the optimal design of EAPS. This method takes into account data surveyed from a …

Development Of High-Density Propulsion System Technologies For Interplanetary Small Satellites And Cubesats, Morgan Andrew Roddy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research was to support the development of a novel propulsion system for small satellites (<180 kg) and CubeSats. This was pursued by conducting a collection of studies that were designed to provide engineering data that would be critical in designing a functional prototype. The novel propulsion system was conceived by the author to provide best-in-class performance for the small satellite and CubeSat families of spacecraft. This context presents specific design requirements that the presented technology attempts to satisfy. The most critical among these is high density; the propellant was designed to be stored with high density and the thruster was designed to be as compact as possible. The propulsion system is composed of two primary elements, a propellant generator and a thruster. The propellant generator works by sublimating a solid crystal into vapor and then using this vapor to etch a dense metal. The resulting gaseous byproducts of this reaction are the propellant. This dissertation used xenon difluoride (XeF2) vapor to etch tungsten (W) which react to form xenon gas (Xe) and tungsten hexafluoride (WF6). This approach gave a theoretical propellant storage density 5.40 g/cm3; and 5.17 g/cm3 was demonstrated. The sublimation dynamics of the XeF2 were studied as a function of surface area and temperature and it was found to be suitable for the intended application due to its high effluence rate; that is, it sublimates fast enough to be useful. The sublimation rates are on the order of 10’s of µg/s. The etch rate of XeF2 on W was also studied and found to be suitably fast to provide useful amounts of reactants for use as a propellant, again on the order of 1’s of µg/s. The thruster is an electrostatic radio frequency (RF) ion thruster design and is manufactured with Low Temperature Co-Fired Ceramic (LTCC) materials system and manufacturing technology. Manufacturing samples of the thruster were built at the University of Arkansas in July 2015 and tested at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in May 2018. Testing validated the viability of the LTCC thruster and provided valuable information on how to improve the thruster’s design.

Performance Testing Of Aero-Naut Camfolding Propellers, Or D. Dantsker, Robert W. Deters, Marco Caccamo, Michael S. Selig

Publications

The increase in popularity of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has been driven by their use in civilian, education, government, and military applications. However, limited on-board energy storage significantly limits flight time and ultimately usability. The propulsion system plays a critical part in the overall energy consumption of the UAV; therefore, it is necessary to determine the most optimal combination of possible propulsion system components for a given mission profile, i.e. propellers, motors, and electronic speed controllers (ESC). Hundreds of options are available for the different components with little performance specifications available for most of them. By examining a variety of …

Performance Enhancement And Characterization Of An Electromagnetic Railgun, Paul M. Gilles

Master's Theses

Collision with orbital debris poses a serious threat to spacecraft and astronauts. Hypervelocity impacts resulting from collisions mean that objects with a mass less than 1g can cause mission-ending damage to spacecraft. A means of shielding spacecraft against collisions is necessary. A means of testing candidate shielding methods for their efficacy in mitigating hypervelocity impacts is therefore also necessary. Cal Poly’s Electromagnetic Railgun was designed with the goal of creating a laboratory system capable of simulating hypervelocity (≥ 3 km/s) impacts. Due to several factors, the system was not previously capable of high-velocity (≥ 1 km/s) tests. A deficient projectile …

Single-Degree-Of-Freedom Experiments Demonstrating Electromagnetic Formation Flying For Small Satellite Swarms Using Piecewise-Sinusoidal Controls, Ajin Sunny

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

This thesis presents a decentralized electromagnetic formation flying (EMFF) control method using frequency-multiplexed sinusoidal control signals. We demonstrate the EMFF control approach in open-loop and closed-loop control experiments using a single-degree-of-freedom testbed with an electromagnetic actuation system (EAS). The EAS sense the relative position and velocity between satellites and implement a frequency-multiplexed sinusoidal control signal. We use a laser-rangefinder device to capture the relative position and an ARM-based microcontroller to implement the closed-loop control algorithm. We custom-design and build the EAS that implements the formation control in one dimension. The experimental results in this thesis demonstrate the feasibility of the …

Mathematical Programming Approach For The Design Of Satellite Power Systems, Allen Flath Iii

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Satellite power systems can be understood as islanded dc microgrids supplied by specialized and coordinated solar cell arrays augmented by electrochemical battery systems to handle high-power loads and periods of eclipse. The periodic availability of power, the limited capacity of batteries, and the dependence of all mission service on power consumption create a unique situation in which temporal power and energy scarcity exist. A multi-period model of an orbital satellite power system’s performance over a mission’s duration can be constructed. A modular power system architecture is used to characterize the system’s constraints. Using mathematical programming, an optimization problem can be …

Experimental Evaluation Of A Krypton Propellant Arrangement In A T-100-3 Hall-Effect Thruster, Adam Patel, Javier Cortina Fernandez, Justin Chow, Osvaldo Alejandro Martin, Alexey Shashurin

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Stationary Hall thrusters are electric, moderate-specific impulse propulsion systems developed in Russia. These devices manipulate electric and magnetic fields to expel ionized gas (plasma) components, resulting in thrust. The success of Hall-effect engines in USSR satellite-transfer missions quickly sparked western interest in the design. Extensive government and academic study commenced shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when the technology was made available to the United States. The common SPT-100 model was the primary subject of such studies. Unfortunately, limited literature exists for rare and uncommon Hall thruster models. The T-100-3 stationary plasma thruster suffers from this gap; few …

Autonomous Uav Battery Swapping, Reed Jacobsen, Nikolai Ruhe, Nathan Dornback

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

One of the main hindrances of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology are power constraints. One way to alleviate some power constraints would be for two UAVs to exchange batteries while both are in flight. Autonomous mid-air battery swapping will expand the scope of UAV technology by allowing for indefinite flight times and longer missions. A single board computer will control each UAV’s flight software to respond to inputs to align with each other mid-flight. When the two UAVs have joined, mechanical components will exchange a depleted battery on the worker UAV for a freshly charged battery that belongs to the …

Electromagnetic Forcing As A Damping Method For Combustion Instabilities, Bradley Henderson, Gabriel Xu

Von Braun Symposium Student Posters

No abstract provided.

Anisoplanatic Electromagnetic Image Propagation Through Narrow Or Extended Phase Turbulence Using Altitude-Dependent Structure Parameter, Monish Ranjan Chatterjee, Ali Mohamed

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The effects of turbulence on anisoplanatic imaging are often modeled through the use of a sequence of phase screens distributed along the optical path. We implement the split-step wave algorithm to examine turbulence-corrupted images.

A Study Of Ion And Electron Responses To A Dc Electric Field In A Hydrocarbon Flame, Stewart Jacobs

Von Braun Symposium Student Posters

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Electrode Geometry And Location On Electrically-Modified Flames, Paulo R. Salvador

Von Braun Symposium Student Posters

No abstract provided.

Modeling And Test Of The Efficiency Of Electronic Speed Controllers For Brushless Dc Motors, Clayton R. Green

Master's Theses

Small electric uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAV) represent a rapidly expanding market requiring optimization in both efficiency and weight; efficiency is critical during cruise or loiter where the vehicle operates at part power for up to 99% of the mission time. Of the four components (battery, motor, propeller, and electronic speed controller (ESC)) of the electric propulsion system used in small UAVs, the ESC has no accepted performance model and almost no published performance data. To collect performance data, instrumentation was developed to measure electrical power in and out of the ESC using the two wattmeter method and current sense resistors; …

Electric Field Modification Of A Diffusion Flame With Variable Electrode Geometry, Zachary Pinz

Summer Community of Scholars Posters (RCEU and HCR Combined Programs)

No abstract provided.

Identification Of Hydrodynamic Forces Developed By Flapping Fins In A Watercraft Propulsion Flow Field, Erdem Aktosun

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In this work, the data analysis of oscillating flapping fins is conducted for mathematical model. Data points of heave and surge force obtained by the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) for different geometrical kinds of flapping fins. The fin undergoes a combination of vertical and angular oscillatory motion, while travelling at constant forward speed. The surge thrust and heave lift are generated by the combined motion of the flapping fins, especially due to the carrier vehicle’s heave and pitch motion will be investigated to acquire system identification with CFD data available while the fin pitching motion is selected as a function …

Characterization And Testing Of A 5.8 Kv Sic Pin Diode For Electric Space Propulsion Applications, Alexandra Toftul

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Inductive Pulsed Plasma Thrusters (IPPTs) are a type of in-space propulsion that has multiple advantages over conventional chemical propulsion for long-duration, deep space missions. Existing IPPT prototypes utilize spark gap switches, however these are subject to corrosion problems that make them unreliable for long-term use. Recent advances in solid state switching technology have opened up a variety of switching options that could provide greater reliability, controllability, and increased energy efficiency. Taking advantage of this, a novel thruster drive circuit topology containing a high-power silicon controlled rectifier (SCR) and series fast recovery diode (FRD) is proposed that is expected to increase …

Dual High-Voltage Power Supply For Use On Board A Cubesat, Nicholas Weiser

Master's Theses

Since their conception in 1999, CubeSats have come and gone a long way. The first few that went into space were more of a “proof of concept,” and were more focused on sending simple data and photographs back to Earth. Since then, vast improvements have been made by over 40 universities and private firms, and now CubeSats are beginning to look towards interplanetary travel. These small satellites could provide a cost effective means of exploring the galaxy, using off the shelf components and piggy-backing on other launch vehicles with more expensive payloads. However, CubeSats are traditionally launched into Low Earth …

Design And Evaluation Of A Propulsion System For Small, Compact, Low-Speed Maneuvering Underwater Vehicles, Florence M. Mbithi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Underwater vehicles used to perform precision inspection and non-destructive evaluation in tightly constrained or delicate underwater environments must be small, have low-speed maneuverability and a smooth streamlined outer shape with no appendages. In this thesis, the design and analysis of a new propulsion system for such underwater vehicles is presented. It consists primarily of a syringe and a plunger driven by a linear actuator and uses different inflow and outflow nozzles to provide continuous propulsive force. A prototype of the proposed propulsion mechanism is built and tested. The practical utility and potential efficacy of the system is demonstrated and assessed …

Advancing The Beamed Energy Ablation Driven Propulsion Engine Concept, Grant Bergstue

Von Braun Symposium Student Posters

No abstract provided.

Fadec Advances Allow Better Engine Performance, Nihad E. Daidzic

Aviation Department Publications

No abstract provided.