• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• v.y2005m4
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• pp.381-385
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• 2005

Recently, spacecraft technology trends can be expressed three words, i.e. 'faster, cheaper and smaller'. Among these systems, micro propulsion device is an essential component. Also micro nozzle is the most important part in the micro propulsion device. In case of cold-gas thruster, micro nozzle converts the stored energy in a pressurized gas into kinetic energy through expansion ratio. In this paper we report characteristics of micro nozzle with throat expansion ratio and ratio of specific heats. We measure thrusts using strain gauge based thrust measurement system. We can estimate the micro nozzle performance through experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.100-107
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• 2001

Miro propulsion device is a literally very small propulsion system The reason why such a small propulsion system is required is that micro satellites are considered as substitutions for conventional satellites to reduce cost; the fabrication of micro satellites enables us to produce mass production Microrockets have relatively high values of thrust/weight ratio due to the cube law; weight is proportional to volume and thrust is proportional to area. Accordingly, downsizing makes the ratio of thrust/weight ratio high However, conventionally ignorable facts are not negligible any more in small scale systems. for chemical micro rockets, downsizing causes lots of heat loss as surface to volume ratio increases, which results in the destruction of radical ions. For thrusters using plasma, the generation of strong magnetic field for plasma is very difficult. Also, in the aspect of flow dynamics, the effects of drag and viscosity are important parameters in low Re flows. When these problems are solved, micro propulsion systems can be commercialized and result in spin-off effects in many fields.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.25-29
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• 2007

Minimization of conventional propulsion device has been studied for altitude control of micro satellite. We studied micro nozzle performance and found higher significant loss for a micro nozzle with smaller nozzle throat diameter. To overcome this loss, we proposed thermal transpiration based micro propulsion system. This new system has no moving parts and can control flow by temperature gradient, and this can be an option for potential new micro propulsion system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.416-423
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• 2012

Liquid acquisition device in the liquid propellant supply system is required to protect entrance of gas bubble into the propulsion system. The device exploits the capillary effect of micro-sized poles in a screen and supplies pure liquid-phase propellant to the propulsion system. The bubble point is the most important performance parameter in the design of a liquid acquisition device. In this paper, performance parameters affecting the bubble point are identified through literature survey, in order to develop the experimental setup for the bubble point measurement.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.36-40
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• 2008

Minimization of nozzle induces many flow losses in micro-propulsion system. In this study, we studied about thermal transpiration based new conceptual micro propulsion system to overcome these losses. Thermal transpiration device(Knudsen pump) having no moving parts can self-pump the gaseous propellant by temperature gradient only (cold to hot). We designed, fabricated the knudsen pump and analyzed pressure gradient efficiency of membrane according to Knudsen number under vacuum condition. In this paper, we compared mass flow rate of Knudsen pump by using different membrane type ; Polyimide and Hangi, Korean traditional paper.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.23-27
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• 2002

Micro turbine that is a component of micro thermal system refers to turbines on the scale of centimeters which can transmit power on the order of tens of Watts. Such devices can be used as propulsion or power generation devices for various potable and micro devices. An interdisciplinary team at Seoul National University has designed, fabricated and tested such a device, and this paper describes each phase. A commercial code has been used for design, and MEMS processes have been used for manufacturing. Finally, some preliminary test results are presented.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.64-70
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• 2008

Thanks to the breakthroughs in micro fabrication technology, numerous concepts of micro aerospace systems including micro aerial vehicle, nano satellite and micro robot have been proposed. In order to activate these mobile micro systems, high density power in a small scale power source is required. However, we still do not have micro power source that has energy density that can support these systems. In the present article, status of micro power sources are described and alternatives that have been derived from the past experience are proposed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.837-841
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• 2008

Propulsion of gene coated micro-particles is desired for non-intrusive drug delivery inside biological tissue. This has been achieved by the development of a device that uses high power laser pulses. The present paper looks at the mechanisms of micro-particle acceleration. Initially, a high power laser pulse is focused onto the front side of a thin aluminium foil leading to its ablation. The ablation front drives a compression wave inside the foil, thus leading to the formation of a shock wave, which will later reflect from the rear side of the foil, due to acoustic impedance mismatch. The reflected wave will induce an opposite motion of the foil, characterized by a very high speed, of the order of several millimeters per microsecond. Micro-particles, which are deposited on the rear side of the foil, thus get accelerated and ejected as micro-projectiles and are able to penetrate several hundreds of micrometers inside tissue-like material. These processes have been observed experimentally by using high-speed shadowgraphy and considered analytically.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• v.y2005m4
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• pp.39-43
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• 2005

In this paper, we describe the contents of the achievement of basic experiments for manufacturing and evaluating a micro-rocket using solid propellant, as the device of the micro thrust generator which can be used for attitude control of satellites. We try to analyze performance of the rocket through visualization of the motor jet, and adopt various ignition methods to obtain confidence in ignition problem. For this purpose, we develop and test two different types of thrust measurement system.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.483-490
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• 2008

Minimization of nozzle induces many flow losses in micro-propulsion system. In this study, we studied about thermal transpiration based micro propulsion system to overcome these losses. Thermal transpiration device(Knudsen pump) having no moving parts can self-pump the gaseous propellant by temperature gradient only (cold to hot). We designed, fabricated the Knudsen pump and analyzed pressure gradient efficiency of membrane according to Knudsen number under vacuum condition. Experimental results showed that thick membranes are more effective than thin membranes in transition flow regime, and pressure gradient efficiency according to Knudsen number is increased to maximum 82% apart from membrane thickness in free molecular regime.