A Pathfinder Approach for Developing Regeneratively Cooled Thrust Chamber of a Space Rocket Engine
- Paper number
IAC-09.C4.P.4
- Author
Dr. Hwan-Seok CHOI, Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Korea, Republic of
- Coauthor
Dr. Yeoung-Min Han, Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Korea, Republic of
- Coauthor
Dr. Young-Mog Kim, Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Korea, Republic of
- Coauthor
Dr. Gwang-Rae Cho, Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Korea, Republic of
- Year
2009
- Abstract
Since the successful development of the 3rd Korean Sounding Rocket (KSR-III) powered by a pressure-fed, ablation cooled liquid rocket engine utilizing LOx and kerosene as the propellant, the research activities of Korea Aerospace Research Institute(KARI) were directed to the development a pump-fed, regeneratively cooled liquid rocket engine of the next space launch vehicle. The thrust chamber is one of the most critical challenges of the development due the problem of combustion instabilities and robustness to harsh structural and thermal environment of operation. The required technological advancements were quite demanding because of the significantly different design features and technological details of the new thrust chamber as compared to the previous one. The technologies of bipropellant swirl coaxial injector as well as cooled protruding baffle injector and double-walled thrust chamber and nozzle with milled cooling channels were relatively new and necessary to be mastered successfully. It was also necessary to develop and establish a reliable and efficient development logic which can lead to a success of development with a minimal risk and input resources. A pathfinder approach was pursued to accomplish the aforementioned objectives. This paper deals with the development procedure and logic behind which KARI has successfully concluded its first development of regeneratively cooled thrust chamber for a space rocket engine. The development was conducted systematically in three phases; the first phase being injector characterization and selection phase, the second being subscale test phase through which elementary technologies as well as validity of each design parameter were investigated and the last phase being the full-scale test phase. The computational tools were extensively used throughout the phases and they have also evolved in the process development with respect to their prediction capability and accuracy. A total of five full-scale thrust chambers each of which having specific design features and technological objectives were designed, manufactured and subjected to test firings to achieve a total accumulated test duration of 713 seconds through 49 firings which included 23 stability rating tests using bomb devices. Compliance to performance requirements was verified through the tests. The development procedure and logic we have adapted and established through this development were concluded to be successful in terms of performance and efficiency and at the same time very instructive as such they can be proposed as a reference to follow for a future development of a space rocket engine thrust chamber.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)