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INTRODUCTION
Cryogenics originated from two Greek words kyros which means cold or
freezing and genes which means born or produced. Cryogenics is the study of very
low temperatures or the production of the same. Liquefied gases like liquid nitrogen and
liquid oxygen are used in many cryogenic applications. Liquid nitrogen is the most
commonly used element in cryogenics and is legally purchasable around the world.
Liquid helium is also commonly used and allows for the lowest temperatures to be
reached. These gases can be stored on large tanks called Dewar tanks, named after
James Dewar, who first liquefied hydrogen, or in giant tanks used for commercial
applications.
The field of cryogenics advanced when during world war two, when metals were
frozen to low temperatures showed more wear resistance. In 1966, a company was
formed, called Cyro-Tech, which experimented with the possibility of using cryogenic
tempering instead of Heat Treating, for increasing the life of metal tools. The theory was
based on the existing theory of heat treating, which was lowering the temperatures to
room temperatures from high temperatures and supposing that further descent would
allow more strength for further strength increase. Unfortunately for the newly-born
industry the results were unstable as the components sometimes experienced thermal
shock when cooled too fast. Luckily with the use of applied research and the with the
arrival of the modern computer this field has improved significantly, creating more stable
results.
Another use of cryogenics is cryogenic fuels. Cryogenic fuels, mainly oxygen and
nitrogen have been used as rocket fuels. The Indian Space Research Organization
(ISRO) is set to flight-test the indigenously developed cryogenic engine by early 2006,
after the engine passed a 1000 second endurance test in 2003. It will form the final
stage of the GSLV for putting it into orbit 36,000 km from earth.
Cryogenic Engines are rocket motors designed for liquid fuels that have to be
held at very low "cryogenic" temperatures to be liquid - they would otherwise be gas at
normal temperatures.
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The engine components are also cooled so the fuel doesn't boil to a gas in the
lines that feed the engine. The thrust comes from the rapid expansion from liquid to gas
with the gas emerging from the motor at very high speed. The energy needed to heat
the fuels comes from burning them, once they are gasses. Cryogenic engines are the
highest performing rocket motors. One disadvantage is that the fuel tanks tend to be
bulky and require heavy insulation to store the propellant. Their high fuel efficiency,
however, outweighs this disadvantage.
The Space Shuttle's main engines used for liftoff are cryogenic engines. The
Shuttle's smaller thrusters for orbital maneuvering use non-cryogenic hypergolic fuels,
which are compact and are stored at warm temperatures. Currently, only the United
States, Russia, China, France, Japan and India have mastered cryogenic rocket
technology.
All the current Rockets run on Liquid-propellant rockets. The first operational
cryogenic rocket engine was the 1961 NASA design the RL-10 LOX LH2 rocket engine,
which was used in the Saturn 1 rocket employed in the early stages of the Apollo moon
landing program.
The major components of a cryogenic rocket engine are:
pyrotechnic igniter
fuel injector
fuel turbo-pumps
gas turbine
cryo valves
Regulators
rocket engine
nozzle
Among them, the combustion chamber & the nozzle are the main components of
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HISTORY
The only known claim to liquid propellant rocket engine experiments in the
nineteenth century was made by a Peruvian scientist named Pedro Paulet. However, he
did not immediately publish his work. In 1927 he wrote a letter to a newspaper in Lima,
claiming he had experimented with a liquid rocket engine while he was a student in
Paris three decades earlier.
Historians of early rocketry experiments, among them Max Valier and Willy Ley,
have given differing amounts of credence to Paulet's report. Paulet described laboratory
tests of liquid rocket engines, but did not claim to have flown a liquid rocket.
The first flight of a vehicle powered by a liquid-rocket took place on March 16,
1926 at Auburn, Massachusetts, when American professor Robert H. Goddard
launched a rocket which used liquid oxygen and gasoline as propellants. The rocket,
which was dubbed "Nell", rose just 41 feet during a 2.5-second flight that ended in a
cabbage field, but it was an important demonstration that liquid rockets were possible.
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Gas-Generator Cycle
The gas-generator cycle taps off a small amount of fuel and oxidizer from the
main flow to feed a burner called a gas generator. The hot gas from this generator
passes through a turbine to generate power for the pumps that send propellants to the
combustion chamber. The hot gas is then either dumped overboard or sent into the
main nozzle downstream. Increasing the flow of propellants into the gas generator
increases the speed of the turbine, which increases the flow of propellants into the main
combustion chamber (and hence, the amount of thrust produced). The gas generator
must burn propellants at a less-than-optimal mixture ratio to keep the temperature low
for the turbine blades. Thus, the cycle is appropriate for moderate power requirements
but not high-power systems, which would have to divert a large portion of the main flow
to the less efficient gas-generator flow.
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FUEL INJECTION
The functions of the injector are similar to those of a carburetor of an internal
combustion engine. The injector has to introduce and meter the flow of liquid propellants
to the combustion chamber, cause the liquids to be broken up into small droplets (a
process called atomization), and distribute and mix the propellants in such a manner
that a correctly proportioned mixture of fuel and oxidizer will result, with uniform
propellant mass flow and composition over the chamber cross section. This has been
accomplished with different types of injector designs and elements.
The injection hole pattern on the face of the injector is closely related to the
internal manifolds or feed passages within the injector. These provide for the distribution
of the propellant from the injector inlet to all the injection holes. A large complex
manifold volume allows low passage velocities and good distribution of flow over the
cross section of the chamber. A small manifold volume allows for a lighter weight
injector and reduces the amount of "dribble" flow after the main valves are shut. The
higher passage velocities cause a more uneven flow through different identical injection
holes and thus a poorer distribution and wider local gas composition variation.
Dribbling results in afterburning, which is an inefficient irregular combustion that
gives a little "cutoff" thrust after valve closing. For applications with very accurate
terminal vehicle velocity requirements, the cutoff impulse has to be very small and
reproducible and often valves are built into the injector to minimize passage volume.
Impinging-stream-type, multiple-hole injectors are commonly used with oxygenhydrocarbon and storable propellants. For unlike doublet patterns the propellants are
injected through a number of separate small holes in such a manner that the fuel and
oxidizer streams impinge upon each other. Impingement forms thin liquid fans and aids
atomization of the liquids into droplets, also aiding distribution. The two liquid streams
then form a fan which breaks up into droplets.
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Unlike doublets work best when the hole size (more exactly, the volume flow) of
the fuel is about equal to that of the oxidizer and the ignition delay is long enough to
allow the formation of fans. For uneven volume flow the triplet pattern seems to be more
effective.
The non-impinging or shower head injector employs non-impinging streams of
propellant usually emerging normal to the face of the injector. It relies on turbulence and
diffusion to achieve mixing. The German World War II V-2 rocket used this type of
injector. This type is now not used, because it requires a large chamber volume for
good combustion.
Sheet or spray-type injectors give cylindrical, conical, or other types of spray
sheets; these sprays generally intersect and thereby promote mixing and atomization.
By varying the width of the sheet (through an axially moveable sleeve) it is possible to
throttle the propellant flow over a wide range without excessive reduction in injector
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pressure drop. This type of variable area concentric tube injector was used on the
descent engine of the Lunar Excursion Module and throttled over a 10:1 range of flow
with only a very small change in mixture ratio.
The coaxial hollow post injector has been used for liquid oxygen and gaseous
hydrogen injectors by most domestic and foreign rocket designers. It works well when
the liquid hydrogen has absorbed heat from cooling jackets and has been gasified. This
gasified hydrogen flows at high speed (typically 330 m/sec or 1000 ft/sec); the liquid
oxygen flows far more slowly (usually at less than 33 m/sec or 100 ft/sec) and the
differential velocity causes a shear action, which helps to break up the oxygen stream
into small droplets. The injector has a multiplicity of these coaxial posts on its face.
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Injection/Atomization Zone
Two different liquids are injected with storable propellants and with liquid
oxygen/hydrocarbon combinations. They are injected through orifices at velocities
typically between 7 and 60 m/sec or about 20 to 200 ft/sec. The injector design has a
profound influence on the combustion behavior and some seemingly minor design
changes can have a major effect on instability. The pattern, sizes, number, distribution,
and types of orifices influence the combustion behavior, as do the pressure drop,
manifold geometry, or surface roughness in the injection orifice walls.
The individual jets, streams, or sheets break up into droplets by impingement of
one jet with another (or with a surface), by the inherent instabilities of liquid sprays, or
by the interaction with gases at a different velocity and temperature. In this first zone the
liquids are atomized into a large number of small droplets. Heat is transferred to the
droplets by radiation from the very hot rapid combustion zone and by convection from
moderately hot gases in the first zone. The droplets evaporate and create local regions
rich either in fuel vapor or oxidizer vapor.
This first zone is heterogeneous; it contains liquids and vaporized propellant as
well as some burning hot gases. With the liquid being located at discrete sites, there are
large gradients in all directions with respect to fuel and oxidizer mass fluxes, mixture
ratio, size and dispersion of droplets, or properties of the gaseous medium. Chemical
reactions occur in this zone, but the rate of heat generation is relatively low, in part
because the liquids and the gases are still relatively cold and in part because
vaporization near the droplets causes fuel-rich and fuel-lean regions which do not burn
as quickly. Some hot gases from the combustion zone are re-circulated back from the
rapid combustion zone, and they can create local gas velocities that flow across the
injector face.
The hot gases, which can flow in unsteady vortexes or turbulence patterns, are
essential to the initial evaporation of the liquids. The injection, atomization and
vaporization processes are different if one of the propellants is a gas. For example, this
occurs in liquid oxygen with gaseous hydrogen propellant in thrust chambers or precombustion chambers, where liquid hydrogen has absorbed heat from cooling jackets
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and has been gasified. Hydrogen gas has no droplets and does not evaporate. The gas
usually has a much higher injection velocity (above 120 m/sec) than the liquid
propellant.
This cause shear forces to be imposed on the liquid jets, with more rapid droplet
formation and gasification. The preferred injector design for gaseous hydrogen and
liquid oxygen is different from the individual jet streams used with storable propellants.
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2. Flame Propagation
3. Flame Lift off
4. Flame Anchoring
Primary Ignition
begins at the time of deposition of the energy into the shear layer and ends when
the flame front has reached the outer limit of the shear layer
starts interaction with the recirculation zone.
phase typically lasts about half a millisecond
it is characterised by a slight but distinct downstream movement of the flame .
The flame velocity more or less depends on the pre-mixedness of the shear layer
only.
Flame Propagation
This phase corresponds to the time span for the flame reaching the edge of the
shear layer, expands into in the recirculation zone and propagates until it has
consumed all the premixed propellants.
This period lasts between 0.1 and 2 ms.
It is characterised by an upstream movement of the upstream flame front until it
reaches a minimum distance from the injector face plate.
It is accompanied by a strong rise of the flame intensity and by a peak in the
combustion chamber pressure.
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The duration of this phase as well as the pressure and emission behaviour during
this phase depend strongly on the global characteristics of the stationary cold
flow before ignition.
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Flame Anchoring.
This period lasts from 20 ms to more than 50 ms, depending on the injection
condition.
It begins when the flame starts to move a second time upstream to injector face
plate and ends when the flame has reached stationary conditions.
During this phase the flame propagates upstream only in the shear layer .
Same as flame lift-off phase the vaporisation is enhanced by the hot products
which are entrained into the shear layer through the recirculation zone.
The flame is stabilised at a position where an equilibrium exists between the local
velocity of the flame front and the convective flow velocity.
This local flame velocity is depending on the upstream LOX-evaporation rates,
i.e., the available gaseous O2, mixing of O2 and H2, hot products and radicals in
the shear layer.
At the end of this phase, combustion chamber pressure and emission intensity
are constant.
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The HM7B engine is a gas generator liquid oxygen / liquid hydrogen engine that
powers the Ariane 4 third stage. The HM7 engine built upon the development work of
the 40 kN thrust HM4. The HM7 development program began in 1973 as part of
Europe's effort to develop an indigenous launch capability.
HM7 engine occurred in 1979 and the engine went on to power the third stage of the
Ariane 1. SEP continued to perfect and upgrade the engine, increasing the specific
impulse by 4 seconds by increasing chamber pressure and lengthening the nozzle. The
new engine, the HM7B, powered the third stage of the Ariane 2,3 and 4. As of June 1st,
1995, SEP had produced 111 HM7B engines, with a cumulated total of 171,700
seconds of operation, including 47,400 in flight.
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Engine construction materials are mainly stainless steel, Nimonic 75 (ChromiumNickel Alloy) and copper.
Applications
The 300 N cryogenic engines enable the simplicity of a pressure fed propulsion
system whilst offering the performance of a turbo-pump propulsion system.
Being pressure fed, the engine does not require an additional turbo-pump, with
its associated complexity.
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The 300 N cryogenic engines may be used as a main engine in dedicated stages
for orbital insertion, orbital transfer, orbital, and interplanetary applications, including:
Upper stages
Kick stages
Vernier stages
Transfer stages
The 300 N cryogenic engines may also be used as a thruster, or thruster cluster
with existing cryogenic turbo-pump propulsion systems and stages for such applications
as performance augmentation, upgrades, roll control.
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launcher, the EPC (tage Principal Cryo technique, main cryogenic stage) and provide
8% of the total lift-off thrust (the rest being provided by the two solid rocket boosters).
The engine operating time is 600 s in both configurations.
The coaxial injector elements cause the LOX and LH2 propellants to be mixed
together. LOX is injected at the centre of the injector, around which the LH2 is injected.
These propellants are mainly atomized and mixed by shear forces generated by the
velocity differences between LOX and LH2. The final acceleration of hot gases, up to
supersonic velocities, is achieved by gas expansion in the nozzle extension, thereby
increasing the thrust.
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Applications:
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engine, removing the need for a gas generator to drive the fuel and oxydizer pumps. It
features a carbon ceramic extendable nozzle in order to have a large, 2.15 m diameter
nozzle extension with minimum length: the retracted nozzle part is deployed only after
the upper stage separates from the rest of the rocket; after extension, the engine's
overall length increases from 2.3 m to 4.2 m.
Applications:
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CONCLUSION
The area of Cryogenics in Cryogenic Rocket Engines is a vast one and it cannot
be described in a few words. As the world progress new developments are being made
more and more new developments are being made in the field of Rocket Engineering.
Now a day cryo propelled rocket engines are having a great demand in the field of
space exploration. Due to the high specific impulse obtained during the ignition of fuels
they are of much demand.
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REFERENCES
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