Aiaa 1991 2510
Aiaa 1991 2510
Aiaa 1991 2510
No. 91-2510
by
B.I. Gubanov
AIA N SAEIAS ME
27th Joint Propulsion Conference
June 24-26, 1991 / Sacramento, CA
far permission to m p y or republish. contact
American lnstiute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
370 L'Enfant Promenade, S.W., Washington, D.C.20024-2518
The RD-I70 is the most powerful liquid rocket engine in the
-- 6O world. It has four chambers and operates with postbuming of
*" oxidizer-rich generator gas. The engine is in successful sewice
on first stages of the Energia and Zenit launchers.
-- 50 The RD-I70 engine is produced both as an expendable and
reusable (up to 10 flights) unit. Its exploitation opens great
possibilities for creation of permanently operating orbital stations
-- 40 and realization of manned flights to Mars. The RD-I70 engine
was developed by the Energomash Design Bureau during 1974
- 1990 under the leadership of V. P. Glushko and
__ 3o V. P. Radovsky.
Specifications
Thrust at sea level, tons 740
--O' Thrust in vacuum, tons 806
Specific impulse at sea level, s 309
Specific impulse in vacuum, s 331
-- 10
Combustion chamber pressure, kdsq cm 250
Dry mass, kg 9755
- Propellants:
The engine provides helium heating for oxidizer tank pres- Directions in DeveloDment of Main Encines
surization and gaseous hydrogen supply for fuel tank pressur-
Rocket and space technologydesigners have to solve the
ization and onboard power units drive.
problem of optimum direction forecasting and choices for further
Encine Structure technology evolution. Achievements in the field of electronics,
computerization, structural materials, and exact mechanics and
The RD-0120 engine consists of: tendency towards increase of payload traffic and expansion of
space exploration make development of new concepts for future
a chamber; launch vehicles urgent.
a high-pressure turbopump (HFTP); In the USSR and the USA two trends have come out in
a low-pressure fuel turbopump (LPITP); development of space transportation systems (Fig. 2). The first
one relates mainly to ballistic expendable systems descended
a low-pressure oxidizer turbopump (LPOTP);
from military warhead delivery means. Another uend relates to
w a prebumer; aircraft and winged-type reusable transportation systems with
pneumatic valves for engine start and shut-off; horizontal or vertical takeoff of the launch vehicle and horizontal
landing of its reusable element. Both trends are equally valid
an electrically driven regulator for thrust level control; according to our idea. But an economic effectiveness criterion is
an clcctrically driven throttle for oxidizer flow control; the same for all systems the specific cost of payload deliverv to
~
combustion chamber and prebumer igniters; the near-earth orbit, i.e., expenses per kilogram ofpayload
inserted into orbit.
a purging system;
emergency protection system sensors. While the Earth gravity law exists and burned propellants are
the source of power for movement, flights to the Moon, Mars
The engine uses a staged combustion power cycle with gen- and other planets will be perfonned with the use of expendable
erator gas postburning after the turbine. The chamber is a ballistic-type transportation systems. Also, while economic
brazed - welded unit and consists of a main injector, a combus- laws exist, aspiration for payload delivery to near space with the
tion chamber and a nozzle. The combustion chamber and the use of reusable transportation systems remains and promotes
nozzle are cooled with a certain portion of hydrogen supplied associated system devclopment. Desire to develop such a space
after the fuel pump. vehicle that lands on the Earth surface, and in several hours is
ready for the next flight to space, is strong in launch vehicle
HPTP uses a single shaft and consists of a two-stage axial designers.
turbine, a three-stage centrifugal fuel pump and two oxidizer
pumps. Reliabilitv and Safetv Imurovement
LPFTP consists of a two-stage turbine driven with gaseous The program of propulsion systems for expendable rocket-
hydrogen sopplied from the combustion chamber coolant chan- space transport vehicle design has been, in general, specified.
nel. The program can be divided into two stages. The first stage
includes permanent development of structural elements, propu-
LPOTP consists of a two-stage axial pump and two sion system reliability improvenient on the basis of statistical
hydraulic turbines providing separate drive for each pump stage data acquisition, as well as improvement of mass characteristics.
and using liquid oxygen as working fluid supplied after the The second stage includes the change of strategic charactcristics
pump prebumer stage. related to the propulsion system thrust augmentation (up to 230 t
for RD-0120, up to 800 t for RD-170) through the change of
The prebumer provides hot fuel-rich generator gas for the the construction and configuration. These measures allow thc
.u HPTP turbines drive. It is a brazed-welded unit and consists of use of all possible advantages of the stnicture and to realize the
a housing, a fuel manifold and an injector. expendable launch vchicle program.
A
Launching
mass,! 450 1060 $080 1600 2390 4800 2380 2180 2500
Payload M a s s
Low circular
orbit (H=200 km) t5,7 30 35 65 100 200 30 30-50 50-70
geostationary
orbit 23 5.4 6.3 11.7 18 36 5.4 5.4-9 9-t2,6
First Stage RD-170 oxygen-kerosene engine with thrust of 806t a,
.-c
main engine P
engine quantity t 2 2 2 4 8 4 4 UI
-
Second Stage
main engine
RD-0120 oxygen-hydrogen engine with thrust of 2001 -
a,
7
-
m
engine quantity t 1 1 4 4 4 4 3 0"
the propolsion system inoperative. ratus action and closing of valves is required.
Among the first group are failures for which the time of fail- The third group includes failures with typical times of sev-
ure development, determined by performance parameters, is lcss eral tenths of a second or more. These failures are successfully
than that required for carrying on protective operations. The localized by the use of algorithms based on the information on
minimum time for canying a protective operations was estimated the performance parameters. Among typical failures of this
as a slim of the time interval for the equipment action (0.02 s) group is non-tightness of tanks with fuel components and g;ires,
and the time for closing of valvcs (0.02 s). Among these fail- that can result in a loss of working medium components and a
ures are failures of the liquid engine turbopump for the most total failurc.
pat They account for 30% of a11 failures. Algorithms based on
the analysis of performance processes are unsuitable to control Available means of control, diagnosis and emergency pro-
such for the engine emergency switching-off, as tlie failure is tection do not allow prevention of all types of emergenc)' .sltllil-
'
detected in the last phase of its dcvelopment. Besides, an tions (particularly the ones of tlie first group) occuming during
explosion or fast combustion of smctural elements occurs. The the liquid rocket engine operation. Specifically, the turbine and
typical time of failure development on inflaming is about 0.01 - gas passage wear during launching remains uncovered, tis wcll
0.001 s, i.e., even less than the time of closing of pyrotechnic as cracks in the turbopump rotor appearing during long-tenn
valves. Therefore, to prevent dangerous consequences of such operation, which are the main sources of emergency situittions.
failures, it proved to he necessary to develop algorithms based
on the use of information on the smctural element state. The Studies are under way on the use of the induction voltex
aim of creation of such algorithms is carrying-out of early diag- flow method of controlling cracks that appear in the turbopump
nosis, i.e., failure detection at ;in early stage when the failurc rotor blades of tlie running liquid rocket engine, as well LIS the
development prwcss did not change into the final phase fol- method of controlling acoustical signals of the ntnning engine to
prevent thc abovementioned emergency situations.
Such investigations are of particular value for thc service lifc The oxidizing circuit with afterbuming is envisaged at a suit-
increase and reusability of the propulsion systems. able temperature level of the turbine working medium, that
makes it possible to provide the highest pressure within the
Three-Prooell,uit Rocket Engine The pneumatic systcm provides control of the engine auto-
matics units. The pnetrmatic system includes bottles with
The engine operates in two modes: the mode of maximum gaseous helium.
thrust of 200 t in vacuum with the use of three propellant com-
ponents -~ oxygen, hydrogen and hydrocarbon - that con- The engine assembly includes heat exchangers for heating
forms to the rocket operation in the mode of the first stage; and helium and hydrogen used in the tank pressurization system.
the mode of maimum efficiency with the partial thrust up to
40% of the maximum value with the use of two propellant com- Engine starting is performed i n the low thmst conditions
ponents ~ oxygen, hydrogen ~- when the second stage is
running. When transferring to the second mode, kerosene is cut off,
and oxygen supply into the thrust chamber is reduced, accord-
The thrust chambcr has three-component mixing elements ingly. Thepressure within the thrust chamber is set in the
and one common combustion chamber in both operational region of 140 k g s q cm.
modes, provides the maximum specific impulse and most favor-
able operating conditions for main structural elements with The reality of three-component engine development is based
regard to possible thermal- and gasdynamic losses. on the use o f
In this case, theoretical specific impulse values are achieved 1, The experience of creating the RD-I70 superpowerful
that exceed the analogous specific impulse values with scparate reusable engine from which the following is adopted: the
combustion of component pairs. basic circuit of thc gas generator chamber and its mixing
elements, structural materials and coatings providing the
To provide the maximum efficiency of such thrust chamber ignition protection, supply units, engine stating princi-
at ground level and further at a high altitude, it is fulfilled with a ples, methods of diagnostics, control and protection.
movable nozzle with screening cooldown.
2 . A powerfiil stand and production base.
The specific impulsc amounts to 416 s in the first operating
mode and to 462 s in the second operating mode. Principal works in terms of providing a high technological
level of development are carried out within research and devel-
The cooling is performed with minimum hydrogen con- opment of RD-170 propiilsion unit at present.
sumption (lip to 5 % ) in the first operating mode.
Only studies of the processes of combustion and three-com-
?Iie experience shows that the hydrogen-based reducing gas ponent mixing processes a e specific for a three-component
leads to hydrogen cmbrittlement with crack appearance in the engine.
most stressed structural elements. In this connection the
oxidizing gas has been accepted as a working medium of the Such is the state of development of powerful launch vehicle
turbopump. propulsion systems in the USSR as presented by a development
engineer of space uansportntion systems.
The turbopumps are separate for each propellant component.