AA 284a

Advanced Rocket Propulsion

Lecture 12
Liquid Rocket Propulsion

Prepared by
Arif Karabeyoglu

Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Stanford University
and
Mechanical Engineering
KOC University

Fall 2019
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Liquid Rocket Schematic

Liquid Systems:

–  Monopropellant vs.
Bipropellant
–  Pressure fed vs
pump fed
–  Propellants:
Hypergolic

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Liquid Rocket Types –Based on Propellants
–  Monopropellant systems:
•  Single liquid, simpler system
•  Decompose over a catalyst bed
•  Low Isp performance
•  H2O2, hydrazine, N2O
•  Used in satellite propulsion, RCS
–  Cryogenic Engines
•  LOX/LH2 –  LOX/Methane
•  Expensive, but very high Isp •  Up and coming technology
•  Upper states •  Good compromise between
–  LOX/Kerosene kerosene and H2
•  Decent Isp and density
•  Hard to stabilize
•  A lot of launch vehicles use LOX/Kerosene engines
–  Storable
•  NTO/Hydrazine or derivative
•  Toxic, not favored in modern systems

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Liquid Rocket Thrust Chamber

•  Thrust chamber includes

–  Injector
–  Combustion chamber
–  Nozzle
–  Ignition system
•  Introduce the oxidizer and fuel in
liquid or gaseous phase
•  Control the mass flow rate of
oxidizer and fuel
•  Vaporize mix and react the
components
•  Expel though the nozzle

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Pump Fed Liquid Rocket Cycle Types

–  Need a working gas to drive

the turbine of the turbopump
system
–  Vaporize the propellant to
drive the turbine by
•  Combustion (very lean or
very rich to limit
temperature)
•  Use the fuel from
regenerative cooling
–  Turbine inlet temperature is
typically around 800-850 K

–  Staged combustion cycle is more efficient than the gas generator cycle (older systems
such as F1 use the gas generation cycle).
–  Fuel rich pre burners are easier to develop but not as desirable as the oxidizer rich
burners
•  Soot deposit on turbine blades
•  Much more oxidizer than fuel (O/F >1)
–  Only LOX rich staged combustion systems are Russian engines
–  LOX/H2 systems typically utilize fuel rich pre burners
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Liquid Rocket Engines
Engine Thrust, klb Isp, Propellants Design Year
sec
F-1 1,500 265 LOX/RP-1 1959
(Saturn V- First Stage) (SL) (SL)
J-2 230 425 LOX/H2 1960
(Saturn V-Upper stages) (vac) (vac)
RS-27A 200 255 LOX/RP-1 1987
(Old Delta Booster) (SL) (SL)
MA-5A 430 265 LOX/RP-1 1988
(Old Atlas Booster) (SL) (SL)
SSME (RS-24) 512 453 LOX/H2 1972
(Space Shuttle Main Engine) (vac) (vac)
SE-10 Max 10.5 305 N2O4/N2H4+ 1963
(Lunar Module Descent) (vac) (vac) UDMH
RD-180 900 311 LOX/Kerosene Late 1970’s
(Atlas V Booster) (SL) (SL)

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A High Performance Engine: RD-180
•  High performance LOX/kerosene engine
•  Built and marketed by RD AMROSS
–  50% NPO Energomash (Russian)
–  50% Pratt and Whitney (US)
•  Derived from the Russian engine RD-170
(developed for the Energia/Buran system)
•  Used in Atlas III and Atlas V launchers
•  Staged combustion cycle – Oxidizer rich
pre burner
•  Vacuum Isp: 337.8 sec
•  Nozzle expansion ratio: 36.4
•  Chamber pressure: 257 atm
•  O/F: 2.71
•  Thrust: 0.9 Mlbf
•  Throttling range: 47% to 100%

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Liquid Rocket Combustion

•  Monopropellant vs Bipropellant
•  Low Residency Times: <10 msec
•  High Volumetric Heat Release: 370 Mega-Watt/m3
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Liquid Rocket Combustion
•  Combustion Zones:
–  Injection Atomization Zone:
•  Heterogeneous mixture (liquid/gas)
•  Low velocities
•  Relatively cool
•  Main process evaporation of the droplets
–  Rapid Combustion Zone:
•  Intensive fast combustion reactions
•  Large increase in velocity (due to gas/liquid volume increase)
•  Combustion is an inherently unsteady process (small explosions)
–  Stream Tube Combustion Zone:
•  High gas velocity, small residence time
•  Combustion reactions at a slow rate
•  Stream tubes are formed
•  Limited transport across the stream tubes
•  Boundaries between zones are fuzzy
•  Combustion models and design tools are incomplete
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Droplet Evaporation Model
•  Diffusion flame
•  Transport through molecular
diffusion + convection
•  Diffusion flame, O/F stoichiometric
•  Evaporation of a burning droplet in
quiescent environment
•  D2 law for droplet evaporation

dD 2 8λ
= −K = − ln(1 + B )
dt Cpρ
•  The Spalding number is

1 ⎡ QrYox ,∞ ⎤
B= C (T −
⎢ p ∞ l T ) + ⎥
hv ⎣ (O F )stoic ⎦
•  See “Combustion” by I. Glassman
for a rigorous derivation •  As a first order approximation
droplet surface temperature can
be taken as the boiling
temperature
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Liquid Rocket Combustion-Stream Tube Model

•  One dimensional model

•  Different steam tubes could be at different O/F ratios. Introduces a loss
•  Boundary layer heat transfer can be modeled by this model
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Liquid Engine Design Issues
•  Must consider performance, stability and compatibility
simultaneously
•  Performance (Isp):
–  Theoretical value (for a given average O/F)
–  Losses:
•  Thermal (heat transfer)
•  Combustion efficiency (mixing/kinetics)
•  Nonuniform propellant distribution (mixing)
•  Boundary layer (friction)
•  Geometry (nozzle divergence)
•  Particle lag (two phase flow)
–  The Isp efficiencies of the modern engines are fairly high: 95-98
%
–  Operational conditions are critical
•  Low pressures: Kinetics
•  Low Thrusts: Boundary layer
•  Small Volume: Low combustion efficiency

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Liquid Engine Design Issues
•  Stability:
–  Liquid engine combustion is an inherently unstable
process
–  Metastable (minimize the amplitude of the
fluctuations)
–  Stability fixes:
•  Chemical
•  Aerodynamic
•  Mechanical
•  Compatibility
–  Environmental components
•  Thermal (Heat Transfer)
•  Chemical (Reactions)
•  Gas dynamic (Erosion)
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Liquid Engine Design Issues
•  Control Variables:
–  Feed system dynamics
–  Injector design, injector pressure drop
–  Combustion chamber geometry
•  Combustion chamber volume, Vc (includes the convergent part of
the nozzle). Define L*

L* = Vc At
•  Residence time in the chamber is
τ = L*/ c*
•  Efficiency increases with L*. More time for atomization,
vaporization, mixing and reacting
•  For typical liquid systems L* ranges 0.8-3 meters
•  Baffles
•  Absorption cavities
–  Propellant additive selection (i.e. Hypergolic propellants)
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Liquid Engine Design Issues
•  Combustion chamber and nozzle walls must be cooled
–  Regenerative cooling
•  Cooling jacket, some of the heat is used to warm the fuel
–  Ablative cooling
•  Carbon graphite, phenolic
–  Film cooling
•  Injector face cooling
–  Radiation cooling
•  Used in small engines and monopropellant systems
•  Niobium, Rhenium coated Inconel
–  Combination
•  As the combustion chamber size reduces
–  Heating intensity increases
–  Surface area decreases
•  Nozzle throat has the maximum heat transfer
•  Total pressure loss in the chamber
–  Ac/At must be high to minimize the total pressure loss
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Liquid Engine Injector Design
•  Injector design is critical for stable and efficient operation
–  Meter the oxidizer and fuel flow rates
–  Atomize the liquids
•  Types
–  Impinging stream: doublet, triplet, self impinging
–  Shower head (V2 rocket injector)
–  Hollow post sleeve element
–  Splash plate
–  Pintle
•  Flow rate expression
m! = Cd Ai 2 ρl ΔP
•  Typically Cd varies from 0.60 to 0.84 (0.61 for square edge orifice)
•  Large injector pressure drop is important for stability and efficiency
–  Increasing Delta P increases the tank weight or pump requirements
•  Momentum matching for the oxidizer and fuel streams. Makes the
throttling more difficult

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Liquid Rocket Injector Design - SSME Injector

•  Liquid rocket injectors are very complex devices

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Liquid Rockets Summary
Summary
•  Complicated design
•  Expensive manufacturing
–  Exotic materials
–  Complex parts with tight tolerance requirements
•  Very good Isp performance
•  Multiple liquids in the system
•  Fire hazard
•  Mature technology
Challenges
•  Cost effective systems
•  LOX/RP-1: Oxygen rich pre-burner
•  Replacement for hydrazine and its derivatives

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