Eaton Char-Lynn Motor , Rocket Motor And Liquid Fuel Rocket
Eaton Char-lynn Motor : When you think about future rocket technology, you might think of ion propulsion, antimatter motors and other odd concepts.
Not so fast! The last chapter of the traditional liquid fuel rocket has not yet been written. A new generation of liquid fuel rocket designs is currently being researched that can outperform today’s designs while increasing reliability.
Liquid fuel rockets have been around for a long time: the first liquid launch was completed in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard. The simple rocket produced about 20 pounds of thrust, enough to bring it to the air about 40 feet. Since then, design has become complex and powerful. For example, the space shuttle’s three liquid fuel on-board motors can apply more than 1.5 million pounds of integrated thrust on the way to Earth’s orbit.
Right: Robert Goddard and the old liquid fuel rocket of the 1920s.
You might think that all possible improvements must be made in the design of liquid fuel rockets so far. you are wrong. It turns out that there is still room for improvement.
Under the leadership of the US Air Force, a team of NASA, the Department of Defense and several industry partners are working on better motor design. Their plan is called integrated high-reward rocket propulsion technology and they are looking for many possible improvements. The most promising solution to date is the new approach to fuel flow:
The basic idea behind liquid fuel rockets is quite simple. The fuel and oxidant in liquid form are sent to the combustion chamber and ignited. For example, the shuttle uses liquid hydrogen as the fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidant. The hot gas generated by the combustion quickly escapes through the conical nozzle, thereby generating thrust.
Of course, the details are much more complicated. First, both the liquid fuel and the oxidant must be delivered into the chamber very quickly under great pressure. The shuttle’s main motor will drain a fuel-filled pool in 25 seconds!
This endless stream of fuel is driven by a turbo pump. To power the turbo pump, a small amount of fuel is “pre-ignited” to produce hot gas that drives the turbo pump, which in turn pumps the remaining fuel to the main combustion chamber. A similar method is used to pump the oxidant.
Today’s liquid fuel rockets only send small amounts of fuel and oxidizer through the pre-combustor. The whole flows directly into the main combustion chamber, completely skipping the pre-combustor.
One of the many innovations being tested by the Air Force and NASA is to send all fuel and oxidizer through their respective pre-combustors. There is only a small amount consumed – enough to run the turbine; the rest flows into the combustion chamber.
This “full flow grading cycle” design has an important advantage: when the mass passes through the turbine that drives the turbo pump, the turbo pump is driven more strongly to achieve higher pressures. Higher pressures are equal to the higher performance of the rocket.
According to Gary Genge of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, this design has never been used in liquid fuel rockets in the United States. Genge is a deputy project manager for Integrated Powerhead Demonstrator (IPD) – the test motor for these concepts.
”These designs we are exploring can improve performance in many ways,” Genge said. “We hope to achieve better fuel efficiency, higher thrust-to-weight ratio and higher reliability at lower cost.”
“However, at this stage of the project, we are just trying to get this alternative flow model to work,” he pointed out.
They have achieved a key goal: an motor with a lower operating temperature. “The turbo pump using the traditional flow mode can be heated to 1800 degrees Celsius,” says Genge. This is a great thermal stress for the motor. The “full flow” turbo pump is cooler because it allows more mass to be used, lower temperatures can be used and still achieve good performance. “We have lowered the temperature by a few hundred degrees,” he said.
Genge pointed out that IPD is only a testing platform for new ideas. The demonstrators themselves will never fly into space. But if the project is successful, some improvements in IPD may enter the future launch vehicle.
Nearly a hundred years and thousands of launches after Goddard, the best liquid fuel rockets may not have arrived.
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