Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Liquid Rocket Engines”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 217 records · Page 12
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1991

Sensing and actuation in a liquid propellant rocket engine

Equations describing the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy, and multicomponent transport and chemical reaction in a liquid propellant rocket (LPR) engine are given, along with appropriate boundary conditions. The formulation includes a detailed description of the two-phase (gas/liquid) flow in terms of a moving boundary problem, with droplets and vapor occupying time-dependent subdomains of the LPR chamber. Several sensor and actuator types are considered in detail, and their mathematical descriptions are incorporated into the differential equations and boundary conditions.

Bentsman, Joseph↗
NASA NTRS1982

Reusable Rocket Engine Maintenance Study

Approximately 85,000 liquid rocket engine failure reports, obtained from 30 years of developing and delivering major pump feed engines, were reviewed and screened and reduced to 1771. These were categorized into 16 different failure modes. Failure propagation diagrams were established. The state of the art of engine condition monitoring for in-flight sensors and between flight inspection technology was determined. For the 16 failure modes, the potential measurands and diagnostic requirements were identified, assessed and ranked. Eight areas are identified requiring advanced technology development.

Macgregor, C. A.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Fundamental rocket injector/spray programs at the Phillips Laboratory

The performance and stability of liquid rocket engines is determined to a large degree by atomization, mixing, and combustion processes. Control over these processes is exerted through the design of the injector. Injectors in liquid rocket engines are called upon to perform many functions. They must first of all mix the propellants to provide suitable performance in the shortest possible length. For main injectors, this is driven by the tradeoff between the combustion chamber performance, stability, efficiency, and its weight and cost. In gas generators and preburners, however, it is also driven by the possibility of damage to downstream components, for example piping and turbine blades. This can occur if unburned fuel and oxidant later react to create hot spots. Weight and cost considerations require that the injector design be simple and lightweight. For reusable engines, the injectors must also be durable and easily maintained. Suitable atomization and mixing must be produced with as small a pressure drop as possible, so that the size and weight of pressure vessels and turbomachinery can be minimized. However, the pressure drop must not be so small as to promote feed system coupled instabilities. Another important function of the injectors is to ensure that the injector face plate and the chamber and nozzle walls are not damaged. Typically this requires reducing the heat transfer to an acceptable level and also keeping unburned oxygen from chemically attacking the walls, particularly in reusable engines. Therefore the mixing distribution is often tailored to be fuel-rich near the walls. Wall heat transfer can become catastrophically damaging in the presence of acoustic instabilities, so the injector must prevent these from occurring at all costs. In addition to acoustic stability (but coupled with it), injectors must also be kinetically stable. That is, the flame itself must maintain ignition in the combustion chamber. This is not typically a problem with main injectors, but can be a consideration in preburners, where the desire to keep turbine inlet temperatures as cool as possible can make it advantageous for the preburners to operate as far from stoichiometry as can be tolerated. For some missions such as single stage to orbit, all of the above requirements must be maintained over a throttleable range, for example 5:1 to 10:1. Finally, the injectors must be ignitable during startup where pressures and temperatures are far from design conditions, and ignition transients must be minimized in order to avoid damage to engine components. In order to satisfy these various constraints, the injector designer must be able to perform design tradeoff studies, and it is important that this be done with minimal time and costs. In fact, it can easily be argued that reducing engine development time and costs is essential to maintaining U.S. competitiveness in space. The Propulsion Directorate of the Phillips Laboratory has invested in a number of programs to advance liquid rocket engine technology, and several of these are directed at improving design tools for liquid rocket injectors. The purpose of the presentation will be to describe some of these latter programs.

Talley, D. G.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Developments in REDES: The rocket engine design expert system

The Rocket Engine Design Expert System (REDES) is being developed at the NASA-Lewis to collect, automate, and perpetuate the existing expertise of performing a comprehensive rocket engine analysis and design. Currently, REDES uses the rigorous JANNAF methodology to analyze the performance of the thrust chamber and perform computational studies of liquid rocket engine problems. The following computer codes were included in REDES: a gas properties program named GASP, a nozzle design program named RAO, a regenerative cooling channel performance evaluation code named RTE, and the JANNAF standard liquid rocket engine performance prediction code TDK (including performance evaluation modules ODE, ODK, TDE, TDK, and BLM). Computational analyses are being conducted by REDES to provide solutions to liquid rocket engine thrust chamber problems. REDES is built in the Knowledge Engineering Environment (KEE) expert system shell and runs on a Sun 4/110 computer.

Davidian, Kenneth O.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Developments in REDES: The Rocket Engine Design Expert System

The Rocket Engine Design Expert System (REDES) was developed at NASA-Lewis to collect, automate, and perpetuate the existing expertise of performing a comprehensive rocket engine analysis and design. Currently, REDES uses the rigorous JANNAF methodology to analyze the performance of the thrust chamber and perform computational studies of liquid rocket engine problems. The following computer codes were included in REDES: a gas properties program named GASP; a nozzle design program named RAO; a regenerative cooling channel performance evaluation code named RTE; and the JANNAF standard liquid rocket engine performance prediction code TDK (including performance evaluation modules ODE, ODK, TDE, TDK, and BLM). Computational analyses are being conducted by REDES to provide solutions to liquid rocket engine thrust chamber problems. REDES was built in the Knowledge Engineering Environment (KEE) expert system shell and runs on a Sun 4/110 computer.

Davidian, Kenneth O.↗
NASA NTRS1998

Current and Future Critical Issues in Rocket Propulsion Systems

The objective of this research was to tackle several problems that are currently of great importance to NASA. In a liquid rocket engine several complex processes take place that are not thoroughly understood. Droplet evaporation, turbulence, finite rate chemistry, instability, and injection/atomization phenomena are some of the critical issues being encountered in a liquid rocket engine environment. Pulse Detonation Engines (PDE) performance, combustion chamber instability analysis, 60K motor flowfield pattern from hydrocarbon fuel combustion, and 3D flowfield analysis for the Combined Cycle engine were of special interest to NASA. During the summer of 1997, we made an attempt to generate computational results for all of the above problems and shed some light on understanding some of the complex physical phenomena. For this purpose, the Liquid Thrust Chamber Performance (LTCP) code, mainly designed for liquid rocket engine applications, was utilized. The following test cases were considered: (1) Characterization of a detonation wave in a Pulse Detonation Tube; (2) 60K Motor wall temperature studies; (3) Propagation of a pressure pulse in a combustion chamber (under single and two-phase flow conditions); (4) Transonic region flowfield analysis affected by viscous effects; (5) Exploring the viscous differences between a smooth and a corrugated wall; and (6) 3D thrust chamber flowfield analysis of the Combined Cycle engine. It was shown that the LTCP-2D and LTCP-3D codes are capable of solving complex and stiff conservation equations for gaseous and droplet phases in a very robust and efficient manner. These codes can be run on a workstation and personal computers (PC's).

Navaz, Homayun K.↗
NASA NTRS1960

Experimental Performance of Area Ratio 200, 25 and 8 Nozzles on JP-4 Fuel and Liquid Oxygen Rocket Engine

The performance of an area ratio 200 bell-shaped nozzle, an area ratio 25 bell-shaped nozzle, and an area ratio 8 conic nozzle on a JP-4 fuel and liquid-oxygen rocket engine has been determined. Tests were conducted using a nominal 4000-pound-thrust rocket in the Lewis 10- by 10-foot supersonic tunnel, which provided the altitude environment needed for fully expanded nozzle flow. The area ratio 200 nozzle had a vacuum thrust coefficient of 1.96, compared with 1.82 and 1.70 for the area ratio 25 and 8 nozzles, respectively. These values are approximately equal to those for theoretical frozen expansion. The measured value of vacuum specific impulse for the area ratio 200 nozzle was 317 seconds for a combustion-chamber characteristic velocity of 5200 feet per second. The vacuum-specific-impulse increase for the area-ratio increase from 8 to 200 was 46 seconds.

Lovell, J. Calvin↗
NASA NTRS2003

Development of Efficient Real-Fluid Model in Simulating Liquid Rocket Injector Flows

The characteristics of propellant mixing near the injector have a profound effect on the liquid rocket engine performance. However, the flow features near the injector of liquid rocket engines are extremely complicated, for example supercritical-pressure spray, turbulent mixing, and chemical reactions are present. Previously, a homogeneous spray approach with a real-fluid property model was developed to account for the compressibility and evaporation effects such that thermodynamics properties of a mixture at a wide range of pressures and temperatures can be properly calculated, including liquid-phase, gas- phase, two-phase, and dense fluid regions. The developed homogeneous spray model demonstrated a good success in simulating uni- element shear coaxial injector spray combustion flows. However, the real-fluid model suffered a computational deficiency when applied to a pressure-based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. The deficiency is caused by the pressure and enthalpy being the independent variables in the solution procedure of a pressure-based code, whereas the real-fluid model utilizes density and temperature as independent variables. The objective of the present research work is to improve the computational efficiency of the real-fluid property model in computing thermal properties. The proposed approach is called an efficient real-fluid model, and the improvement of computational efficiency is achieved by using a combination of a liquid species and a gaseous species to represent a real-fluid species.

Cheng, Gary↗
NASA NTRS1967

Design of Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines Second Edition

This book intends to build a bridge for the student and the young engineer: to link the rocket propulsion fundamentals and elements (which are well covered in the literature) with the actual rocket engine design and development work as it is carried out in industry (which is very little, if at all covered in literature). The book attempts to further the understanding of the realistic application of liquid rocket propulsion theories, and to help avoid or at least reduce time and money consuming errors and disappointments. In so doing, it also attempts to digest and consolidate numerous closely related subjects, hitherto often treated as separate, bringing them up to date at the same time. The book was written "on the job" for use by those active in all phases of engine systems design, development, and application, in industry as well as government agencies. Since it addresses itself to human beings set out to create new machines, rather than describing machines about to dominate man, the language chosen may not always be "functional" in the strict sense of the word. The book presents sufficient detail to familiarize and educate thoroughly those responsible for various aspects of liquid propellant rocketry, including engine systems design, engine development, and flight vehicle application. It should enable the rocket engineer to conduct, independently, complete or partial engine systems preliminary detail designs and to understand and judge the activities in, and the problems, limitations, and "facts of life~ of the various subsystems making up a complete engine system. It also attempts to educate those ultimately interested in specialized subsystems and component design (thrust chamber, turbopump, control valves, etc.) about their own as well as neighboring subsystems and about the complete engine system. This should enable the student to prepare realistic analytical calculations and design layouts with a long headstart toward the final specialized designs for subsystem production release. Special emphasis has been placed on engine flight application to stimulate engine systems and subsystem designers to think in these terms from the outset. The book is intended as a textbook, with specific consideration of the teacher without industry experience. We hope it will stimulate those desiring to specialize in the area of a rocket engine subsystem by supplying adequate information to enable them to benefit fully from the specialized literature. Thus, it provides a realistic expert introduction for those joining the liquid propellant rocket engine field.

Dieter K Huzel↗
NASA NTRS2008

Scaling of Performance in Liquid Propellant Rocket Engine Combustors

The objectives are: a) Re-introduce to you the concept of scaling; b) Describe the scaling research conducted in the 1950s and early 1960s, and present some of their conclusions; c) Narrow the focus to scaling for performance of combustion devices for liquid propellant rocket engines; and d) Present some results of subscale to full-scale performance from historical programs. Scaling is "The ability to develop new combustion devices with predictable performance on the basis of test experience with old devices." Scaling can be used to develop combustion devices of any thrust size from any thrust size. Scaling is applied mostly to increase thrust. Objective is to use scaling as a development tool. - Move injector design from an "art" to a "science"

Hulka, James↗
NASA NTRS1990

Fiber-reinforced ceramic composites for Earth-to-orbit rocket engine turbines

Fiber reinforced ceramic matrix composites (FRCMC) are emerging materials systems that offer potential for use in liquid rocket engines. Advantages of these materials in rocket engine turbomachinery include performance gain due to higher turbine inlet temperature, reduced launch costs, reduced maintenance with associated cost benefits, and reduced weight. This program was initiated to assess the state of FRCMC development and to propose a plan for their implementation into liquid rocket engine turbomachinery. A complete range of FRCMC materials was investigated relative to their development status and feasibility for use in the hot gas path of earth-to-orbit rocket engine turbomachinery. Of the candidate systems, carbon fiber-reinforced silicon carbide (C/SiC) offers the greatest near-term potential. Critical hot gas path components were identified, and the first stage inlet nozzle and turbine rotor of the fuel turbopump for the liquid oxygen/hydrogen Space Transportation Main Engine (STME) were selected for conceptual design and analysis. The critical issues associated with the use of FRCMC were identified. Turbine blades were designed, analyzed and fabricated. The Technology Development Plan, completed as Task 5 of this program, provides a course of action for resolution of these issues.

Brockmeyer, Jerry W.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Control-oriented modeling of combustion and flow processes in liquid propellant rocket engines

This paper presents a control-oriented model of the flow, reaction, and transport processes in liquid propellant rocket combustion chambers, based on the multicomponent conservation laws of gas dynamics. This model provides a framework for the inclusion of detailed chemical kinetic relations, viscous and other dissipative effects, a variety of actuators and sensors, as well as process and measurement disturbances. In addition to its potential usefulness to the designer in understanding the dynamical complexity of the system and the sources of model uncertainty, the model provides a rigorous basis for control system design. An appraisal of current and feasible actuators and sensors, and their mathematical representation are included.

Bentsman, Joseph↗
NASA NTRS1993

Heat transfer in rocket engine combustion chambers and nozzles

Complexities of liquid rocket engine heat transfer which involve the injector faceplate and regeneratively and film cooled walls are being investigated by computational analysis. A conjugate heat transfer analysis will be used to describe localized heating phenomena associated with particular injector configurations and coolant channels and film coolant dumps. These components are being analyzed, and the analyses verified with appropriate test data. Finally, the component analyses will be synthesized into an overall flowfield/heat transfer model. The FDNS code is being used to make the component analyses. Particular attention is being given to the representation of the thermodynamic properties of the fluid streams and to the method of combining the detailed models to represent overall heating. Unit flow models of specific coaxial injector elements have been developed and will be described. Since test data from the NLS development program are not available, new validation heat transfer data have been sought. Suitable data were obtained from a Rocketdyne test program on a model hydrocarbon/oxygen engine. Simulations of these test data will be presented. Recent interest in the hybrid motor have established the need for analyses of ablating solid fuels in the combustion chamber. Analysis of a simplified hybrid motor will also be presented.

Anderson, P. G.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Progress in incompressible Navier-Stokes computations for propulsion flows and its dual-use applications

Development of an incompressible Navier-Stokes solution procedure was performed for the analysis of a liquid rocket engine pump components and for the mechanical heart assist devices. The solution procedure for the propulsion systems is applicable to incompressible Navier-Stokes flows in a steadily rotating frame of reference for any general complex configurations. The computer codes were tested on different complex configurations such as liquid rocket engine inducer and impellers. As a spin-off technology from the turbopump component simulations, the flow analysis for an axial heart pump was conducted. The baseline Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) design was improved by adding an inducer geometry by adapting from the liquid rocket engine pump. The time-accurate mode of the incompressible Navier-Stokes code was validated with flapping foil experiment by using different domain decomposition methods. In the flapping foil experiment, two upstream NACA 0025 foils perform high-frequency synchronized motion and generate unsteady flow conditions for a downstream larger stationary foil. Fairly good agreement was obtained between unsteady experimental data and numerical results from two different moving boundary procedures. Incompressible Navier-Stokes code (INS3D) has been extended for heat transfer applications. The temperature equation was written for both forced and natural convection phenomena. Flow in a square duct case was used for the validation of the code in both natural and forced convection.

Kiris, Cetin↗
NASA NTRS1964

Thermal Insulative Elastomers for Clustered Large Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines

As thrust levels increase and as rocket engines fire for longer periods of time, the difficulties encountered in the protection of critical components from the effects of excessively high temperatures greatly increase. To protect these components a series of filled elastomeric composites have been evaluated. A brief discussion is presented of the problems of hot gas recirculation, radiation, and base plane heating with particular reference to large, clustered, liquid propellant rocket engines. The effect on components is discussed and an evaluation of a series of insulators based on filled elastomeric composites is presented. The evaluations are based on specialized thermal tests which were designed to simulate as far as possible, conditions during flight. The most promising of these elastomeric composites are compared to three alternative insulative systems, a filled, castable ceramic, a metal foil-silica fiber batting, and an asbestos-inconel wire mesh composite, in terms of weight, cost, and ease of fabrication and repair.

Peters, S. T.↗
NASA NTRS1955

Injection Principles from Combustion Studies in a 200-Pound-Thrust Rocket Engine Using Liquid Oxygen and Heptane

The importance of atomizing and mixing liquid oxygen and heptane was studied in a 200-pound-thrust rocket engine. Ten injector elements were used with both steel and transparent chambers. Characteristic velocity was measured over a range of mixture ratios. Combustion gas-flow and luminosity patterns within the chamber were obtained by photographic methods. The results show that, for efficient combustion, the propellants should be both atomized and mixed. Heptane atomization controlled the combustion rate to a much larger extent than oxygen atomization. Induced mixing, however, was required to complete combustion in the smallest volume. For stable, high-efficiency combustion and smooth engine starts, mixing after atomization was most promising.

Heidmann, M. F.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Rocket Engine Numerical Simulator (RENS)

Work is being done at three universities to help today's NASA engineers use the knowledge and experience of their Apolloera predecessors in designing liquid rocket engines. Ground-breaking work is being done in important subject areas to create a prototype of the most important functions for the Rocket Engine Numerical Simulator (RENS). The goal of RENS is to develop an interactive, realtime application that engineers can utilize for comprehensive preliminary propulsion system design functions. RENS will employ computer science and artificial intelligence research in knowledge acquisition, computer code parallelization and objectification, expert system architecture design, and object-oriented programming. In 1995, a 3year grant from the NASA Lewis Research Center was awarded to Dr. Douglas Moreman and Dr. John Dyer of Southern University at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to begin acquiring knowledge in liquid rocket propulsion systems. Resources of the University of West Florida in Pensacola were enlisted to begin the process of enlisting knowledge from senior NASA engineers who are recognized experts in liquid rocket engine propulsion systems. Dr. John Coffey of the University of West Florida is utilizing his expertise in interviewing and concept mapping techniques to encode, classify, and integrate information obtained through personal interviews. The expertise extracted from the NASA engineers has been put into concept maps with supporting textual, audio, graphic, and video material. A fundamental concept map was delivered by the end of the first year of work and the development of maps containing increasing amounts of information is continuing. Find out more information about this work at the Southern University/University of West Florida. In 1996, the Southern University/University of West Florida team conducted a 4day group interview with a panel of five experts to discuss failures of the RL10 rocket engine in conjunction with the Centaur launch vehicle. The discussion was recorded on video and audio tape. Transcriptions of the entire proceedings and an abbreviated video presentation of the discussion highlights are under development. Also in 1996, two additional 3year grants were awarded to conduct parallel efforts that would complement the work being done by Southern University and the University of West Florida. Dr. Prem Bhalla of Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, is developing the architectural framework for RENS. By employing the Rose Rational language and Booch Object Oriented Programming (OOP) technology, Dr. Bhalla is developing the basic structure of RENS by identifying and encoding propulsion system components, their individual characteristics, and cross-functionality and dependencies. Dr. Ruknet Cezzar of Hampton University, located in Hampton, Virginia, began working on the parallelization and objectification of rocket engine analysis and design codes. Dr. Cezzar will use the Turbo C++ OOP language to translate important liquid rocket engine computer codes from FORTRAN and permit their inclusion into the RENS framework being developed at Jackson State University. The Southern University/University of West Florida grant was extended by 1 year to coordinate the conclusion of all three efforts in 1999.

Davidian, Kenneth O.↗
NASA NTRS2013

US Rocket Propulsion Industrial Base Health Metrics

The number of active liquid rocket engine and solid rocket motor development programs has severely declined since the "space race" of the 1950s and 1960s center dot This downward trend has been exacerbated by the retirement of the Space Shuttle, transition from the Constellation Program to the Space launch System (SLS) and similar activity in DoD programs center dot In addition with consolidation in the industry, the rocket propulsion industrial base is under stress. To Improve the "health" of the RPIB, we need to understand - The current condition of the RPIB - How this compares to past history - The trend of RPIB health center dot This drives the need for a concise set of "metrics" - Analogous to the basic data a physician uses to determine the state of health of his patients - Easy to measure and collect - The trend is often more useful than the actual data point - Can be used to focus on problem areas and develop preventative measures The nation's capability to conceive, design, develop, manufacture, test, and support missions using liquid rocket engines and solid rocket motors that are critical to its national security, economic health and growth, and future scientific needs. center dot The RPIB encompasses US government, academic, and commercial (including industry primes and their supplier base) research, development, test, evaluation, and manufacturing capabilities and facilities. center dot The RPIB includes the skilled workforce, related intellectual property, engineering and support services, and supply chain operations and management. This definition touches the five main segments of the U.S. RPIB as categorized by the USG: defense, intelligence community, civil government, academia, and commercial sector. The nation's capability to conceive, design, develop, manufacture, test, and support missions using liquid rocket engines and solid rocket motors that are critical to its national security, economic health and growth, and future scientific needs. center dot The RPIB encompasses US government, academic, and commercial (including industry primes and their supplier base) research, development, test, evaluation, and manufacturing capabilities and facilities. center dot The RPIB includes the skilled workforce, related intellectual property, engineering and support services, and supply chain operations and management. This definition touches the five main segments of the U.S. RPIB as categorized by the USG: defense, intelligence community, civil government, academia, and commercial sector.

Doreswamy, Rajiv↗