Design, calibration and error analysis of a piezoelectric thrust dynamometer for small thrust liquid pulsed rocket engines

Small thrust liquid pulsed rocket engines operating in pulsed mode have gained a good reputation in attitude control applications for their potential reliability and efficiency. However, the pulsed characteristic creates a difficult measurement problem. In this paper, a novel thrust dynamometer with high natural frequency is developed for accurately measuring the pulsed thrust. It consists of two shear mode piezoelectric quartz crystal sensors and an integral shell. The sensors are inserted into unique double-elastic-half-ring grooves with an interference fit. Stiffness equations of the shell which are used to estimate the amount of interference are derived. The thrust dynamometer is calibrated both statically and dynamically. Static calibration uncertainty is evaluated. A trapezoidal impulse force is used to simulate the pulsed thrust for further characterizing the dynamic measurement performance of the thrust dynamometer. An evaluation algorithm of dynamic error is presented and used to evaluate the results of the dynamic simulation. The results show the thrust dynamometer has high sensitivity and natural frequency, good linearity and repeatability, and excellent dynamic performance. It can accurately trace trapezoidal thrust signal of 50 Hz without waveform distortion.