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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.

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139 records · Page 8

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRS2016

Passive Rocket Diffuser Testing: Reacting Flow Performance of Four Second-Throat Geometries

Second-throat diffusers serve to isolate rocket engines from the effects of ambient back pressure. As one of the nation's largest rocket testing facilities, the performance and design limitations of diffusers are of great interest to NASA's Stennis Space Center. This paper describes a series of tests conducted on four diffuser configurations to better understand the effects of inlet geometry and throat area on starting behavior and boundary layer separation. The diffusers were tested for a duration of five seconds with a 1455-pound thrust, LO2/GH2 thruster to ensure they each reached aerodynamic steady state. The effects of a water spray ring at the diffuser exits and a water-cooled deflector plate were also evaluated. Static pressure and temperature measurements were taken at multiple axial locations along the diffusers, and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were used as a tool to aid in the interpretation of data. The hot combustion products were confirmed to enable the diffuser start condition with tighter second throats than predicted by historical cold-flow data or the theoretical normal shock method. Both aerodynamic performance and heat transfer were found to increase with smaller diffuser throats. Spray ring and deflector cooling water had negligible impacts on diffuser boundary layer separation. CFD was found to accurately capture diffuser shock structures and full-flowing diffuser wall pressures, and the qualitative behavior of heat transfer. However, the ability to predict boundary layer separated flows was not consistent.

Jones, Daniel R.↗

NASA NTRS2019

Physical Simulation of Rocket Exhaust Aerodynamics Using Heated Ethane: Conceptual Foundations

Heated ethane (C2H6) has been proposed as an alternative to inert gases for use as a motive fluid in the experimental simulation of rocket exhaust plumes. By adjusting stagnation temperature, the isentropic exponent of ethane can be tuned to approximate those produced by common rocket propellants including hydrogen, hypergols, alcohols, and hydrocarbons. As a result, ethane can be made to follow a nozzle expansion process which is nearly identical to realistic rocket engine flow fields. Additionally, its high auto-ignition temperature and resistance to condensation enable the testing of expansion ratios much larger than conventional inertgas testing. NASA SSC has performed quasi-one-dimensional analyses using the Chemical Equilibrium with Applications (CEA) code as a preliminary means to compare flow fields produced by non-reacting ethane to those of reacting combustion products. A LO2/LH2 rocket engine operating at a chamber pressure of 5.0 MPa and a mixture ratio of 6.1 was used as an example case to demonstrate ethane’s efficacy as a simulant. Errors for key similarity parameters were compared to legacy cold-flow test methods. Additional errors induced by machining tolerances and chemical impurities were also examined. Results suggest that at a 3% geometric scale and ~500 K ethane stagnation temperature, an error of less than 2.5% throughout the flow field is realistically achievable along the dimensions of Mach number, Reynolds number, pressure ratio, and isentropic exponent. The development of an experimental test bed for validation of this configuration is currently underway.

Jones, Daniel R.↗

NASA NTRS2023

Passive Rocket Diffuser Testing: Reacting Flow Performance of Advanced Configurations

Upper stage rocket engines are optimized for operation at the edge of space. Ground testing often requires simulation of high-altitude environments to prevent damage from off-design operation. Passive supersonic diffusers are an effective means of establishing the partial vacuum needed around the nozzle exit. The low cost of diffusers relative to active vacuum sources (ejectors, pumps, etc.) provides a perpetual incentive to improve their performance and expand the envelope of passively testable engines. Second-throat diffusers have been the de facto standard for rocket testing since the 1950s, and numerous studies have focused on parametric optimization of the topology. Yet, even the best second-throat designs may require more driving pressure than an upper stage engine can provide. To overcome conventional limits, engineers at NASA’s Stennis Space Center (SSC) adapted an obscure cold-flow diffuser topology to the extremes of immersion in supersonic combustion products. Aerodynamic experimentation was conducted at SSC’s E-3 test stand to quantify the performance of prototypical hot-fire spike diffuser hardware and enable direct comparison to prior states of the art. A LO X /GH 2 thruster was contoured to approximate the regeneratively-cooled nozzle of an upper-stage engine and fired into 28 downstream diffuser configurations: 16 second-throat, 2 centerbody, and 10 spike. Temperature and pressure were recorded along the test article walls for a range of chamber pressures spanning 3.5 - 5.0 MPa. The second-throat configurations with the lowest start and unstart pressure ratios were shown to outperform equivalent systems in literature and taken as baselines for evaluation of advanced diffuser performance. Compared to these exemplars, centerbody diffusers decreased start pressure ratio by 11% but increased unstart pressure ratio by 15%. Spike diffusers reduced start and unstart pressure ratios by 24% and 9%, respectively.

Rocket↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Characterization of an Optically Accessible RP/GOx Rotating Detonation Engine

The accurate characterization of the dynamic response of liquid jets to transient detonation wave passage is crucial for optimizing and modeling liquid-fueled rotating detonation combustors. To address this need, we have developed an optically accessible rocket RDE (RP-RDE), which utilizes liquid RP-1 and gaseous oxygen as propellants and operates at elevated pressures. The experimental setup features optical access from the oxidizer injection plenum to the combustor exit, allowing for detailed characterization of injection, mixing, and combustion processes and their impact on the detonation wave structure. To design and develop the liquid injection scheme for the RP-RDE test article, we employed a combined experimental and numerical approach that included cold-flow simulations. Our aim was to optimize the liquid injection process and ensure that the resulting fuel-oxidizer mixture is homogeneous and stable. To this end, high-speed optical imaging will be employed to provide qualitative visualization of the liquid and gaseous phases of the propellant as well as the local heat release during detonation wave propagation through the non-premixed medium. This work will provide critical insights into the behavior of the transient detonation waves in more relevant rocket conditions, which is essential for the optimization and modeling of rotating detonation combustors.

Propulsion↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Isolator Shock Train Response to Dual-Mode Scramjet Throttling-Like Forcing

Typical dual-mode scramjet designs employ an isolator component situated between the inlet and combustor. The isolator fluidically buffers the inlet from the combustor via the formation of a shock train, an interconnected series of shock-boundary layer interactions. The isolator is required during ramjet-engine operation and at the lower edges of the scramjet operational envelope. In an operational engine, transient behavior imposes fluidic dynamics due to attitude adjustments, combustor throttling, aberrant resonances within the combustor, etc. To accommodate these transients, the shock train adjusts on both temporal and spatial scales. Sufficiently large downstream pressure increases in the combustor play a critical role during unstart, whereby strong compression waves propagate upstream in the isolator to ultimately force the shock train out the inlet, if it cannot stabilize to the pressure increase. This critically reduces the engine mass flow rate, potentially causing a catastrophic reduction in thrust and loss of the vehicle. A nearly instantaneous unstart can, in principle, be predicted by a ratio of the normal shock pressure jump in an inviscid isolator. However, lower-magnitude perturbations, below this bound, also induce unstarts. Understanding the transient behavior inherent in unsteady isolator operation is critical to reducing safety margin in isolator length and refining engine control algorithms to improve engine performance. The Isolator Dynamics Research Lab (IDRL) is a cold-flow, direct-connect isolator facility ideal for assessing the fundamental fluid dynamics of shock trains. The internal flow of a scramjet isolator is modeled using a 2D, symmetric Mach 2.5 nozzle followed by a 695 mm long, 25.4x50.8 mm rectangular isolator test section. A blockage cone on a high-speed ball screw actuator downstream of the isolator is pulsed to simulate the throttling behavior in an operational combustor. Wall flush high-speed static pressure transducers detect the streamwise shock train within the isolator. Time delays between the onset of the throttling and the response motion of the shock train are analyzed to assess the controlling scales and parameters. From this analysis, the response time of the isolator shock train system is found to depend primarily on the isolator back pressure time-rate-of-change but quickly saturates to a maximum propagation speed along the isolator. These results inform dual-mode scramjet engine designers of the critical parameters and limits of an unstart resistant engine.

scramjet↗

DOE OSTI2018

Application of MP-PIC on Dual Interconnected Chemical Looping Cold Flow System: Validation Process with Hydrodynamic Experiments

Chemical looping with oxygen uncoupling (CLOU) is a promising carbon capture technologies, that utilizes a dual fluidized bed interconnected by loopseals to selectively separate oxygen from ambient air. This study validated Barracuda-VR® hydrodynamic simulations of dual circulating fluidized bed. The experiments were run on a scaled-down cold-flow unit of a 100 kW dual reactor to find the quantities of interest: circulation rate, bed mass location distribution, and pressure profile. The numerical parameters of time step and grid resolution were studied to find the numeric uncertainty for the quantities of interest. The scenario parameters of flowrates, particle densities, and particle voidage were studied. The uncertainty from the model parameters of tangent-to-wall, drag multiplier, and stress model were studied. Simulation and experimental results matched over some of the parameters studied. These can be used to scale the system back to the 100 kW dual reactor and to a larger system.

Hamilton, Matthew A↗

DOE OSTI2014

Biodiesel Basics [Fact Sheet]

This fact sheet provides a brief introduction to biodiesel, including a discussion of biodiesel blends, which blends are best for which vehicles, where to buy biodiesel, how biodiesel compares to diesel fuel in terms of performance, how biodiesel performs in cold weather, whether biodiesel use will plug vehicle filters, how long-term biodiesel use may affect engines, biodiesel fuel standards, and whether biodiesel burns cleaner than diesel fuel. The fact sheet also dismisses the use of vegetable oil as a motor fuel.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

NASA NTRS2023

Passive Rocket Diffuser Testing: Performance Similitude Via Nozzle Contour Modification

Subscale rocket testing offers a chance to examine exhaust plume behavior and prove out auxiliary systems early in a development cycle, when the cost of design iteration remains low. Despite the utility of experimentation, perfect similitude between a rocket engine and a scaled model is unobtainable; choices must be made to prioritize the reproduction of certain parameters at the expense of others. The experimentalist’s toolkit contains a variety of techniques to achieve this selective similarity. Determination of the appropriate tool is dependent on a test series’ specific objectives, facility limitations, and financial considerations. Preservation of full nozzle geometry is crucial if its internal flow is of interest. However, subscale thrusters often serve as a simple plume source in the evaluation of adjacent phenomena: vehicle base pressures, retropropulsive flows, supersonic diffuser performance, refractory erosion, deflector cooling, impingement shock structures, etc. In such cases, it may be permissible to rework the nozzle geometry to compensate for discrepancies in subscale propellant pressure, temperature, or chemical composition. Thrust, pressure, Mach number, heat flux, and myriad other parameters can be used to ground the altered designs. Subscale diffuser testing at the full chamber pressure of flight hardware is occasionally infeasible. It is hypothesized that, absent a means of backpressure reduction, comparable performance may be obtained for a prescribed motive fluid by maintaining scaled engine mass flow and nozzle exit geometry at the expense of throat geometry, exit pressure, and Mach number. The present work offers discrete empirical support for this mass-flow-based approach to contour modification.

subscale↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Preliminary Findings of the Experimental Development Unit Cold Flow Test for a Generation Zero Nuclear Propulsion Engine

Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) technology will greatly benefit human travel to Mars by significantly shortening transit times, improving crew safety, and providing more mission flexibility than traditional chemical rockets. As part of DRACO follow-on work to develop, build, and fly a generation zero NTP engine, a full scale flight-like experimental design unit (EDU) reactor was constructed to collect sufficient on-ground performance data to characterize flow induced vibrations (FIV) of critical reactor structures/components, inform development of the engine and reactor control algorithm, and collect pressure drop and flow distribution data across the reactor. The fluid conditions for the test program were designed to achieve system responses equivalent to that of an operational engine through all phases of engine operation including reactor startup, mainstage operation, reactor shutdown, and reactor cooldown. Over 100 tests were executed, flowing either GN2 or GHe through the EDU at varying flow rates and pressures. This experiment provided early validation of flow behavior and vibration risks before nuclear testing, boosted critical subsystem TRLs, informed design iterations, and reduced future test costs. The steady-state flow parameters for the experiment were modeled in Ansys Thermal Desktop, allowing rapid tuning and experiment-informed updates to a flight-like test matrix. The EDU dynamic environment was characterized with accelerometers, strain gauges, and high-frequency pressure transducers all sampled at 20 kHz. While many narrow-band oscillations were identified, no significant FIV occurred; the reactor structural responses tend to be enveloped by typical launch vehicle ascent vibration environments (defined up to 2 kHz), although significant energy is also present at higher frequencies.

Flow Induced Vibration↗

DOE OSTI2015

Biodiesel Basics (Spanish Version); Clean Cities, Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE)

This Spanish-language fact sheet provides a brief introduction to biodiesel, including a discussion of biodiesel blends, which blends are best for which vehicles, where to buy biodiesel, how biodiesel compares to diesel fuel in terms of performance, how biodiesel performs in cold weather, whether biodiesel use will plug vehicle filters, how long-term biodiesel use may affect engines, biodiesel fuel standards, and whether biodiesel burns cleaner than diesel fuel. The fact sheet also dismisses the use of vegetable oil as a motor fuel.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2014

Biodiesel Basics

This fact sheet provides a brief introduction to biodiesel, including a discussion of biodiesel blends and specifications. It also covers how biodiesel compares to diesel fuel in terms of performance (including in cold weather) and whether there are adverse effects on engines or other systems. Finally, it discusses biodiesel fuel quality and standards, and compares biodiesel emissions to those of diesel fuel.

biodiesel, blends, B5, B2, B100, B20, ASTM D975, A↗

DOE OSTI2017

Biodiesel Basics

This fact sheet (updated for 2017) provides a brief introduction to biodiesel, including a discussion of biodiesel blends, which blends are best for which vehicles, where to buy biodiesel, how biodiesel compares to diesel fuel in terms of performance, the difference between biodiesel and renewable diesel, how biodiesel performs in cold weather, whether biodiesel use will plug vehicle filters, how long-term biodiesel use may affect engines, biodiesel fuel standards, and whether biodiesel burns cleaner than diesel fuel. The fact sheet also dismisses the use of vegetable oil as a motor fuel.

biodiesel, blends, B5, B2, B100, B20, ASTM D975, A↗

DOE OSTI2015

Biodiesel Basics (Spanish Version)

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗