Liquid Monopropellant Engines

Liquid monopropellant engines are a type of engine that uses a single liquid propellant that is ignited/decomposed in the combustion chamber usually via a catalyst. The big advantage of these engines is the fact that only one propellant is needed (reducing complexity) and that no igniters are needed, since the propellant will always ignite, when in contact with the catalyst, increasing reliability. This makes these types of engine ideal for pulsed operatation and station keeping duties. In addition to this the traditional propellant hydrazine, is an excellent storable propellant.

The technological know-how of these engines however largely stems from developments in the 1960s. Much of the design of such engines is empirical or semi-empirical and there have been few new engines developed. This causes a slow decline in technological competence in this topic area, so that a completely new designed engine requires a "re-learning" of old lessons, which have now been forgotten.

Through the participation in new development projects such as the EU PulCheR project in the 2011 FP7 call, we aim at revitalising knowledge of these interesting engine types, especially in the fundamental research areas, to rebuild a strong theoretical base that utilises today's modern computer aided design methodologies.