Optimal design of a Thermodynamic Vent System for cryogenic propellant storage
Résumé
Future operations in space exploration require to store cryogenic liquids for long duration. Residual heat
loads, due to heat conduction in the launcher structure or solar radiation, induce cryogenic propellant
vaporization and tank self-pressurization. The Thermodynamic Vent System (TVS) permits to control
self-pressurization using the following procedure: a fraction of liquid propellant is removed from the
tank by a pump, cooled down by a heat exchanger and re-injected inside the tank as a jet or a spray.
As no natural heat sink is available in space, the cold source is created by removing another fraction of
liquid propellant which is expanded in a Joule-Thomson valve and vented to space. The sub-cooled injection
is followed by vapor condensation and liquid bath destratification due to mixing. In this work, an
optimization method is applied to an extended homogeneous thermodynamic model to design a TVS system
maximizing the storage duration under various heat load and tank size assumptions.
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