Development and Test of the LOX/LNG Regenerative Cooled Rocket Engine (1st Report)

By Kohei TAYA1), Yasuhiro ISHIKAWA1), Hiroyuki SAKAGUCHI1), Kenichi KIMOTO1) and Yutaka SATO2)
2) 1) IHI Corporation, Tokyo, Japan IHI Aerospace Co. Ltd, Tokyo, Japan

IHI Corporation and IHI Aerospace have been developed LOX / LNG(Liquefied Natural Gas) regenerative cooled rocket engine since 2008. This paper describes the design of the 100kN thrust level class LOX/LNG regenerative cooled rocket engine and the results of sea level firing test. The engine adopted Gas Generator Cycle because of the system robustness for LNG's behavior at super-critical condition. It will be the first practical engine with regenerative cooled chamber in the world making use of LNG or Methane as propellant.
Key Words: Liquid Rocket Engine, Regenerative Cooling, LOX/LNG, LOX/Methane, Gas Generator Cycle

Nomenclature
TDM Pc MR C* C* Total Design Method Combustion Pressure Mixture Ratio Characteristic Exhaust Velocity C* Efficiency

system design achieve robustness, stable, long life and good performance. Also MBR(Model Based Risk Management) method of TDM gives an optimum development plan, which focuses on reducing the risk of engine development. According to the plan, following developments, tests and evaluations of all components and engine itself were proceeded.
Pso Tso 20.9 Wo No 11296 Q/N 1.63E-03 U/C0 0.08 0.53 p t 0.34 o 4.79 234 234 W 97.1 35 37 7.17 Pdo No 4044.98 o 25.01 0.4 91 Ps Tsf 0.27 112 7.64 W Nf 26859 6.74E-04 Q/N 0.19273 U/C0 0.498 p 0.40611 t W 333 333 86.9 20 44 Pdf 9.42 38.8 FTP Nf -10376 f 12.09 4.59 MFV 0.46 4.3 0.54 0.56

Rginjo 0.25 Rginjo 17086 5.5 Pginjo 0.27054 Wogg LOX 1.67 GG 0.1 Ptio Ttio 0.96 688 0.1 0.2 639

GG

Rginjf 0.1 Rginj f 23 Tinjf 267 4.84 Pginjf 1.06138 Wfgg LNG 1.87 Pg Tg sw Pgg MRg Wg GG 0.8 750 1 4.4 0.25 1.332 0.83 46.7 0.15 1.22 6.33

Ptif Ttif

4.40 750 Ptdf Ttdf 0.96 688

1.

Introduction At present, LOX/LH2(liquid hydrogen) is major propellant for the large-size rocket engine due to its high specific impulse. Recently, however, LOX/Methane has become popular due to following reasons; (1) higher density (2) higher vaporization temperature (3) cheaper, 5-10 times cheaper than hydrogen (4) reasonable Isp, up to 370 seconds (5) simpler logistics, good for RLV (6) common infrastructure with hydrogen To make full use of the characteristics, IHI Corporation and IHI Aerospace have been worked on practical LOX/LNG(Liquefied Natural Gas) rocket engine in several approaches. One of these approach is this regenerative cooled rocket engine. This paper describes the design of the 100kN thrust level class LOX/LNG regenerative cooled rocket engine and the results of sea level firing test. Engine design Robust Design To design and develop this LOX/LNG regenerative engine, we fully applied TDM method. Figure-1 shows the design process of this engine. Features of the design process were following. Using SBD(Set Based Design method), engine 2.

MOV

0.46 1.06

Mathematical Model

Ptdo Ttdo

Rinjo Rinjo Pinjo

0.2 2.93 6.6 0.05

Rinjf Rinj f Pinj f

0 1 sw 0.25 Cf 2.000 C* 0.98 Dt 106.503 De 1304.39 Dc 184.469 r 17.3 c 3.0 110 N 1.76 Dc/N.5 352 L 392.6 Ispmc 2.74 MReng Pc MR tw L+x 5.5 3.3 1 50 0.6 43.7 802 Twg 2114 349.8 Ws Tinjf T P Pexin Pexout 0.07 267 152 2.65 8.98 6.33

MC

Tre ISPeng

Pe/Pa F

0.4 98 150

MRgg Wgg Nf No
N

transfer Response Surface Model

Total set of design solutions (ex) n=10,000

Filtering

balanced design solutions (ex) n=27 remain

Tuning life
1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0

robustness

perfomance

Optimum Design
vibration stability
42.78 28.99 35.460

Figure-1 Set Based Design of Engine system <Consensus process can be visualized by the filtering method>

Engine System It consists of a degenerately cooled chamber, an injector, turbo pumps, gas generator, propellant valves, and igniters. Figure-2 shows engine system diagram and Table-1 shows engine specification.

Appling advanced nickel electroforming, technical problems of thick nickel electroforming, such as initial stress or contamination, were solved. Also it makes this chamber lighter weight and higher robustness compare to conventional tube wall and hard jacket chamber. Injector Injector is also design by TDM method to fill performance and stability requirements. The injector is equipped coaxial elements. Element final design were fixed by result of previous single element firing test(2). Manifold of injector also design by correlated CFD and obtained data of previous flow visualized test. At this test, we applied PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry method) to observe inner flow of dummy acrylic-made-injector(Figure-4).

Figure-2 Engine System Diagram Table-1 Engine Specification Propellant Cycle Propellant Supply Thrust (Vacuum) Isp (Vacuum) Mixture Ratio (TCA) Combustion Pressure Expansion Ratio Restart Chamber Cooling LOX / LNG GG-cycle Pump-Fed 98.0 [kN] 356.1 [sec] 3.5 5.2 [MPa] 150 Available Regenerative Engine Total:2.91 Supercritical Condition LNG: CH4 99% or more Figure-4 PIV image of Injector manifold flow

For combustion stability device, the injector has acoustic cavities. Also the injector is prepared to install baffles in case of unexpected instability. Turbo Pumps OTP and FTP are installed in the engine. The Pumps have only small modification from existing pumps of other rocket engines. It largely saved the development cost of the engine. Gas Generator Gas Generator injector design was done in step with main injector. To reduce the risk of development, GG injector configuration set similar to main injector; especially element design. Gas generator has also coaxial elements, and these elements are design by the data obtained by previous single element firing test. Igniters The engine has main igniter for thrust chamber assembly and GG igniter for GG assembly. Both of main and GG igniters are exiting igniters with interface replacement. Similar to turbo pumps, it saves the development cost of the engine.

Combustion Chamber Length of the chamber is 530[mm] and diameter is 190 [mm], and it is longer than LOX/LH2 type because of LNGs heat transfer characteristics. The camber consists of a copper inner liner and a nickel electroformed outer shell (Figure-3).
Outer Shell: Ni electroforming Inner Liner: Cr-Zn Cupper Alloy

Coolant Channels Figure-3 Combustion Chamber

3.

Firing Test Firing Test 1 Firing test of the engine has 2 steps. In first test, the turbo pumps were driven by hydrogen gas instead of gas generator exhaust since dummy gas generator was installed in the engine. All other components were flight model design or flight/experimental model design. January 2010, first demo-engine firing test was executed at IHI AIOI site (Engine shown in Figure-5).

6.0

Pc [M Pa]

5.0

4.0

3.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 M R [O/ F] 4.0 5.0

Figure-6 Operating Points of Firing Test

Figure-5 Installed Test Engine at IHI AIOI

Test Results Typical test results are shown in Table-2 and operating conditions of the firing tests are plotted in Figure-6. 7 runs were carried out and the summed test time was more than 80 seconds. The longest duration was achieved in SRx007 (30 seconds). Neither start failure caused by engine nor hard star was obtained. Combustion condition image is shown in Figure-7.
Table-2 Typical Test Results

Figure-7 Combustion Condition Image

Figure-8 shows combustion characteristics in 15 seconds firing test (SRx006). The combustion was stable in terms of combustion pressure (Pc).
6 5

P c [ MP aG ]

Test ID SRx004 SRx005 SRx006 SRx007

Time 10 15 15 30

Pc 4.28 4.77 4.85 5.35

MR 1.89 2.44 2.90 4.01

C* 96.3 95.1 94.4 98.5

4 3 2 1 0 4 6 8 10 12 14 Time [ s] 16 18 20

Figure-8 Combustion Characteristics (SRx006)

Flow rates were settled between 15-22 [kg/s] of LOX and 5.6 8.1 [kg/s] of LNG to investigate operation range
3

property. Efficiency is enough high as compared with a target design value(98.5%). According to component durability, no failure was found out after test. The regenerative chamber inner surface was heat discolored in places after SRx007(highest MR), but no serious damage was found. Other components were still good condition after all check. Future Tasks 2nd Firing Test is planned in summer 2011. In this test, the engine has all components except nozzle skirt. Thus, gas generator will be installed, and turbine of OTP and FTP is powered by hot gas. It will be the first practical engine with regenerative cooled chamber in the world making use of LNG or Methane as propellant. After 2nd firing test, all risk and development plan will be reviewed corresponding to the test result. Tasks for flight model will be organized, and modification plan for each potential application will be stated. 5. Conclusion A short term of only five years, development of regenerative cooled LOX/LNG engine puts into practical use. Applying the TDM (Total Design Management), which is studied as high-reliable and robust design approach, the engine design and development is successfully progressing. First firing test succeeded without serious difficulties in spite of a lack of precedent. In addition, calculated specific impulse at vacuum condition reaches to 363.4 [sec](Nozzle expansion ratio:150). However, there remains possibility for improving deficiency and confirming the components durability. IHI and IHI Aerospace continue to work on next firing test and future development.
References
1) H. Kure, H, Mori..A STUDY ON METHODOLOGY FOR TOTAL DESIGN MANAGEMENT (THE 1ST REPORT), JSQC, (2008) (in Japanese) Y. Noguchi.. The result of the single element firing tests of the supercritical LOX/methane coaxial injector, ISTS 2011, 2011

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