High Response Control Valve

WASK Engineering proposes to refine the design of an piezo actuated throttling valve fabricated in Phase 1 that has demonstrated the ability to open within 2.6 msec to meet the requirements of a 100 lbf RCS thruster. This includes verifying the valve cycle life and valve leakage amounts. Similar valves designed by WASK Engineering have operated for more than 2x109 cycles while maintaining a leakage rate of less than 1x10-3 sccm of He. The current valve design is configured to operate with cryogenic propellants and support the flow rates requried for a 100 lbf liquid oxygen/liquid methane thruster. A piezo actuated valve has many benefits for RCS thrusters. The speed with which the valve can adjust its throttle position means that with two such valves the thruster propellant mixture ratio can be rapidly adjusted to preventhardware damage. The valves have the ability to continuously throttle over a range of thrust levels, allowing the thruster to operate from zero to full thrust. The piezo crystals use very little power, reducing the overall power consumption, again reducing weight.