{"id":{"repo_id":"maryland","oai_identifier":"oai:drum.lib.umd.edu:1903/21944"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/maryland/oai:drum.lib.umd.edu:1903/21944","repository":{"repo_id":"maryland","name":"University of Maryland","base_url":"https://api.drum.lib.umd.edu/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Investigating Energetic Porous Silicon as a Solid Propellant Micro-Thruster","abstract":"Energetic porous silicon has emerged as a novel on-chip energetic material capable of generating thrust that can be harnessed for positioning of millimeter and micron-scale mobile platforms such as microrobots and nano-satellites. Porous silicon becomes reactive when nano-scale pores are infused with an oxidizer such as sodium perchlorate. In this work, energetic porous silicon was investigated as a means of propulsion by quantifying thrust and impulse produced during the exothermic reaction as a function of porosity. The baseline porous silicon devices were two millimeter diameter and etched to a target depth of 25 microns. As a result of changing porosity, a 7x increase in thrust performance and a 16x increase in impulse performance was demonstrated. The highest thrust and impulse values measured were 680 mN and 266 micron Newton seconds respectively from a 2 mm diameter porous silicon device with 72 % porosity. Limitations and trade-offs associated with arrays of devices were presented by studying the effects of scaling porous silicon area, and characterizing thrust when arrays of porous silicon micro-thruster devices were ignited simultaneously. In addition, the effects of sympathetic ignition were evaluated to better understand how closely independent devices could be physically spaced on a 1 cm2 chip. 3D nozzles were fabricated to study confinement effects by varying nozzle throat diameter, and divergent angle. It was shown that integration of a nozzle (throat diameter of 0.75 mm and a divergent angle of theta = 10 degrees) resulted in approximately 4X increase in thrust, and 4X increase in impulse. This study highlighted enhancements to thrust and impulse generated by porous silicon, identified trade-offs associated with simultaneous activation of multiple devices on a 1 cm2 chip, and showed energetic porous silicon as a viable solid propellant for propulsion of nano-satellites and micro-robots.","abstract_html":"Energetic porous silicon has emerged as a novel on-chip energetic material capable of generating thrust that can be harnessed for positioning of millimeter and micron-scale mobile platforms such as microrobots and nano-satellites. Porous silicon becomes reactive when nano-scale pores are infused with an oxidizer such as sodium perchlorate. In this work, energetic porous silicon was investigated as a means of propulsion by quantifying thrust and impulse produced during the exothermic reaction as a function of porosity. The baseline porous silicon devices were two millimeter diameter and etched to a target depth of 25 microns. As a result of changing porosity, a 7x increase in thrust performance and a 16x increase in impulse performance was demonstrated. The highest thrust and impulse values measured were 680 mN and 266 micron Newton seconds respectively from a 2 mm diameter porous silicon device with 72 % porosity. Limitations and trade-offs associated with arrays of devices were presented by studying the effects of scaling porous silicon area, and characterizing thrust when arrays of porous silicon micro-thruster devices were ignited simultaneously. In addition, the effects of sympathetic ignition were evaluated to better understand how closely independent devices could be physically spaced on a 1 cm2 chip. 3D nozzles were fabricated to study confinement effects by varying nozzle throat diameter, and divergent angle. It was shown that integration of a nozzle (throat diameter of 0.75 mm and a divergent angle of theta = 10 degrees) resulted in approximately 4X increase in thrust, and 4X increase in impulse. This study highlighted enhancements to thrust and impulse generated by porous silicon, identified trade-offs associated with simultaneous activation of multiple devices on a 1 cm2 chip, and showed energetic porous silicon as a viable solid propellant for propulsion of nano-satellites and micro-robots.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Churaman, Wayne Anthony"],"institution":null,"degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":"Mechanical Engineering","school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Bergbreiter, Sarah"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2019,"date_issued":"2019","date_published":"2019","updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:02:12Z","subjects":[],"languages":["en"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://doi.org/10.13016/erzv-shp0"],"render_values":[{"text":"https://doi.org/10.13016/erzv-shp0","href":"https://doi.org/10.13016/erzv-shp0","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/1903/21944","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Bergbreiter, Sarah"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.department","label":"Department","values":["Mechanical Engineering"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Churaman, Wayne Anthony"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2019-06-19T05:41:03Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2019-06-19T05:41:03Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2019"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Dissertation"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language.iso","label":"Language (ISO)","values":["en"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://doi.org/10.13016/erzv-shp0"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/1903/21944"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Energetic porous silicon has emerged as a novel on-chip energetic material capable of generating thrust that can be harnessed for positioning of millimeter and micron-scale mobile platforms such as microrobots and nano-satellites. Porous silicon becomes reactive when nano-scale pores are infused with an oxidizer such as sodium perchlorate. In this work, energetic porous silicon was investigated as a means of propulsion by quantifying thrust and impulse produced during the exothermic reaction as a function of porosity. The baseline porous silicon devices were two millimeter diameter and etched to a target depth of 25 microns. As a result of changing porosity, a 7x increase in thrust performance and a 16x increase in impulse performance was demonstrated. The highest thrust and impulse values measured were 680 mN and 266 micron Newton seconds respectively from a 2 mm diameter porous silicon device with 72 % porosity. Limitations and trade-offs associated with arrays of devices were presented by studying the effects of scaling porous silicon area, and characterizing thrust when arrays of porous silicon micro-thruster devices were ignited simultaneously. In addition, the effects of sympathetic ignition were evaluated to better understand how closely independent devices could be physically spaced on a 1 cm2 chip. 3D nozzles were fabricated to study confinement effects by varying nozzle throat diameter, and divergent angle. It was shown that integration of a nozzle (throat diameter of 0.75 mm and a divergent angle of theta = 10 degrees) resulted in approximately 4X increase in thrust, and 4X increase in impulse. This study highlighted enhancements to thrust and impulse generated by porous silicon, identified trade-offs associated with simultaneous activation of multiple devices on a 1 cm2 chip, and showed energetic porous silicon as a viable solid propellant for propulsion of nano-satellites and micro-robots."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Investigating Energetic Porous Silicon as a Solid Propellant Micro-Thruster"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Bergbreiter, Sarah"],"dc:contributor.department":["Mechanical Engineering"],"dc:creator":["Churaman, Wayne Anthony"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2019-06-19T05:41:03Z"],"dc:date.available":["2019-06-19T05:41:03Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2019"],"dc:description.abstract":["Energetic porous silicon has emerged as a novel on-chip energetic material capable of generating thrust that can be harnessed for positioning of millimeter and micron-scale mobile platforms such as microrobots and nano-satellites. Porous silicon becomes reactive when nano-scale pores are infused with an oxidizer such as sodium perchlorate. In this work, energetic porous silicon was investigated as a means of propulsion by quantifying thrust and impulse produced during the exothermic reaction as a function of porosity. The baseline porous silicon devices were two millimeter diameter and etched to a target depth of 25 microns. As a result of changing porosity, a 7x increase in thrust performance and a 16x increase in impulse performance was demonstrated. The highest thrust and impulse values measured were 680 mN and 266 micron Newton seconds respectively from a 2 mm diameter porous silicon device with 72 % porosity. Limitations and trade-offs associated with arrays of devices were presented by studying the effects of scaling porous silicon area, and characterizing thrust when arrays of porous silicon micro-thruster devices were ignited simultaneously. In addition, the effects of sympathetic ignition were evaluated to better understand how closely independent devices could be physically spaced on a 1 cm2 chip. 3D nozzles were fabricated to study confinement effects by varying nozzle throat diameter, and divergent angle. It was shown that integration of a nozzle (throat diameter of 0.75 mm and a divergent angle of theta = 10 degrees) resulted in approximately 4X increase in thrust, and 4X increase in impulse. This study highlighted enhancements to thrust and impulse generated by porous silicon, identified trade-offs associated with simultaneous activation of multiple devices on a 1 cm2 chip, and showed energetic porous silicon as a viable solid propellant for propulsion of nano-satellites and micro-robots."],"dc:identifier":["https://doi.org/10.13016/erzv-shp0"],"dc:identifier.uri":["http://hdl.handle.net/1903/21944"],"dc:language.iso":["en"],"dc:title":["Investigating Energetic Porous Silicon as a Solid Propellant Micro-Thruster"],"dc:type":["Dissertation"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:02:12Z"}