(1)What is meant by staging of rockets?

All rockets use the thrust generated by a propulsion system to overcome the weight of the rocket. For full scale satellite launchers, the weight of the payload is only a small portion of the lift-off weight. Most of the weight of the rocket is the weight of the propellants. As the propellants are burned off during powered ascent, a larger proportion of the weight of the vehicle becomes the near-empty tankage and structure that was required when the vehicle was fully loaded. In order to lighten the weight of the vehicle to achieve orbital velocity, most launchers discard a portion of the vehicle in a process called staging. There are two types of rocket staging 1. Serial staging: There is a small, second stage rocket that is placed on top of a larger first stage rocket. The first stage is ignited at launch and burns through the powered ascent until its propellants are exhausted. The first stage engine is then extinguished, the second stage separates from the first stage, and the second stage engine is ignited. The payload is carried atop the second stage into orbit

2. Parallel staging: Several small first stages are strapped onto to a central sustainer rocket. At launch, all of the engines are ignited. When the propellants in the strap-on's are extinguished, the strap-on rockets are discarded. The sustainer engine continues burning and the payload is carried atop the sustainer rocket into orbit. Parallel staging is used on the Space Shuttle. The discarded solid rocket boosters are retrieved from the ocean, refilled with propellant, and used again on the Shuttle.

(2)Why is staging done? The main reason for multi-stage rockets and boosters is that once the fuel is exhausted, the space and structure which contained it and the motors themselves are useless and only add weight to the vehicle which slows down its future acceleration. By dropping the stages which are no longer useful, the rocket lightens itself. The thrust of future stages is able to provide more acceleration than if the earlier stage were still attached, or a single, large rocket would be capable of. When a stage drops off, the rest of the rocket is still traveling near the speed that the whole assembly reached at burn-out time. This means that it needs less total fuel to reach a given velocity and/or altitude. A further advantage is that each stage can use a different type of rocket motor each tuned for its particular operating conditions. Thus the lower stage motors are designed for use at atmospheric pressure, while the upper stages can use motors suited to near vacuum conditions. Lower stages tend to require more structure than upper as they need to bear their own weight plus that of the stages above them, optimizing the structure of each stage decreases the weight of the total vehicle and provides further advantage. (3)Explain phenomena of compressor stall? Stalling is an important phenomenon that affects the performance of the compressor. It is a situation of separation of air flow at the aero-foil blades of the compressor. It may be due to lesser flow rate than designed value or due to non-uniformity in the blade profile. This phenomenon leads to reduced compression and drop in engine power. Positive Stalling- Flow

separation occurs on the suction side of the blade. Negative Stalling- Flow separation occurs on the pressure side of the blade. Negative stall is negligible compared to the positive stall because flow separation is least likely to occur on the pressure side of the blade.

(4)What are the requirements of inlet duct of jet engines? The inlet duct is very important to overall jet engine performance and will greatly influence jet engine thrust output. The faster the airplane goes more critical the duct design becomes. The main requirements of inlet duct of jet engines are as follows: 1. Inlet duct should supply the engine with required air flow at highest possible pressure so that engine thrust can be high. 2. Duct must allow the engine to operate with much less stall/surge tendencies and permit wide variation in the angle of attack and yaw of aircraft. 3. For subsonic aircrafts duct should not produce strong shock waves or flow separations. 4. Inlet duct should be as straight and possible as possible and should be designed in such a way that boundary layer air will be held to minimum. 5. Another primary task is to convert kinetic energy of rapidly moving inlet airstream to ram pressure rise inside the duct. 6. A good subsonic duct will have a low ram recovery point, about 257.4km/hr (ram recovery point is that air craft speed at which ram pressure rise is equal to friction pressure losses). (5)What is escape velocity? Explain its significance? Escape velocity is lowest velocity that a body must have in order to escape the gravitational attraction of a particular planet or other object . It is the speed at which the kinetic energy plus the gravitational potential energy of an object is zero. For a spherically symmetric body, the escape velocity at a given distance is calculated by the formula:

Where G is the universal gravitational constant (G = 6.671011 m3 kg1 s2), M the mass of the planet, star or other body, and r the distance from the center of gravity. The velocity of escape at earths surface is 11.179m/s and does not vary appreciably in the earths atmosphere.

(6)Explain various types of combustion chambers used in turbojet engines? The three general types of combustion chambers used today in turbojet engines are as follows: CAN, ANNULAR, & CAN-ANNULAR TYPE Combustion chambers.

CAN Combustion chambers This type of combustion chambers is used most frequently on older centrifugal compressor engines. The airflow is ducted to individual combustion can that are arranged around the

circumference of the burner section. Each burner can contain its own fuel nozzle, burner liner and casing. Primary air introduced at nozzle supports combustion, while secondary air flows through, between, and around the burner & liner case to provide cooling. Advantages 1. Good strength and durability. 2. Ease of maintenance. 3. Individual units can be inspected and replaced without disturbing rest of engine. Disadvantages 1. Poor use of space in chamber 2. Greater pressure losses 3. Uneven heat distribution to turbine sections ANNULAR combustion chambers Liner of the annular combustion chamber consists of continuous, circular, inner and outer shroud around the outside of compressor drive shaft. The liner is called a burner basket because of its shape and many holes that allow cooling air inside. In this type fuel is injected through a series of nozzles where it is mixed and ignited with the incoming air Advantages 1. Uniform heat distribution across the face of turbine section 2. Better mixing of air and fuel 3. Better use of available space Disadvantages 1. Structural problems may arise due to large diameter thin walled cylinder required with this type of chamber. 2. Unit cannot be removed without first disassembling the engine from the aircraft.

CAN-ANNULAR Combustion chambers Used mainly on larger, high performance engines. This type consists of number of can at front where the fuel and air is mixed and burned. Since the frontal area is where problems occur (fuel nozzle failure or burn through), an engine needs structural strength of can along with its ability to be easily inspected and replaced. Hot gases then pass to annular area of chamber where they mixed together. Advantages 1. Even temperature distribution at turbine inlet. 2. Eliminating possibility of cold spots caused by nozzle clogging. 3. Greater structural ability and lower pressure loss. Disadvantages 1. Highly expensive.

(7)Explain variable geometry inlet duct of a turbojet engine?

The variable geometry inlet duct utilizes mechanical devices such as ramps, wedges or cones to change the shape of inlet duct as aircraft speed varies between subsonic and supersonic. A complication of supersonic inlet is that optimum shape is variable with the inlet flow direction and Mach number. In high Mach number aircrafts the inlet aircraft geometry is made variable by following methods: 1. Moving inlet spike in and out so as to maintain oblique shock on the edge of outer lip of duct. 2. Moving the side walls to a higher angle so as to force stronger shock waves. 3. Varying the normal shock (expanding the center body). 4. Varying the inlet lip area so as to vary the intake air.

(8)Explain turbine compressor machine in turbojet engines? The function of compressor is to further increase the pressure of incoming air so that sufficient pressure can be achieved for expansion in the turbine and nozzle. By increasing the pressure, the size of the remaining components, combustor and exhaust nozzle can also be reduced and the combustion process in the combustion chamber can be carried out efficiently. Centrifugal compressors are sometimes used in small gas turbine engines. A typical single stage centrifugal compressor consists of an impeller, diffuser and an outlet manifold. Air enters through the

eye of the impeller and gets accelerated outwards due to the centrifugal force imparted by the rotational motion of the impeller and then compressed by diffusing the air in the outlet diffuser where the kinetic energy of the air is converted into pressure energy. The centrifugal compressors produce a higher pressure ratio about 5:1. Usually a double sided rotor is used to reduce the engine diameter.

Advantages 1. High durability. 2. Ease of manufacture. 3. Low cost. Axial flow compressors are usually preferred in propulsion engines due to its long, slim and streamlined structure. In this air flow in axial direction through a series of rotor blades and stationery blades which are concentric with the axis of rotation. The flow path decreases in cross sectional area in proportion to increase in increase in density of air in the direction of flow. Each stage of axial flow compressor produces a small compression ratio with high efficiency. A multi stage axial flow compressor can produce pressure ratio as high as 6 or even more. For same diameter and frontal area, the air handled by the axial flow compressor is more than that handled by the centrifugal compressor. In most of present day aircraft gas turbine engines, split or two spool axial flow compressors are employed to attain higher pressure ratios of order 10 to 15. Higher pressure ratios are obtained by using a high pressure and low pressure rotor driven by separate shafts. Such engines offer higher efficiencies and very good specific fuel consumption.