UCRL-ID-125531

Effect of Parameter Variations on Pulse Rocket Performance, with Hydrogen Propellant

J. W.Hadley

JAN 3 t 1997

osrl

September 13,1963

is an informal report intended primarily for internal or l i i t e d external ribution. The opinions and conclusions stated are those of the author and may nay not be those of the Laboratory. r perormed under the auspices of the US.Department of Energy by the k lrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract W-7405-ENG-48.
3

DISCLAIMER
This report was prepared a an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United s States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, make any warranty, exprrss or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.

DISCLAIMER

Portions of this document may be illegible in electronic image products. Images are produced from the best avaiiable original document.

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CQPP 63-34 . . . . . . .
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ADVANCED DEvELopp4ENT NOTE NO. To:

39

September 13, 1963

. . , ~.. .. .
. I

Distribution

been used t o construct

The pulse rocket performance equations- given in ADN No. 37 &be

8

results have been obtained.

computer program from which a va.riety of numerica3.

These are presented here in tabular and

device).

of a quantity of material ejected from the rocket at essentially zero relative velocity ( f o r instance, chamber or nozzle coolant f l u i d used between pulses o r leakage of propellant Awn the nozzle before firing of the nuclear
One modification has been made, t o include the e f f e c t

figure form.

mdrogen was used as a propellant.

total propellant plus nuclear device mass.

The rocket equation becomes

= 0.98

Ms=

W Y

*o =

W ' y x p
+

Mf

(7)

tJ5,

'., .... ....

. D = %Mo+d2pJ
The basic system considered was described by the &e parruaeters

values chosen a r e listed below:

as the system calcuhted in the final section 'of ADN No. 37.

The numerical

.- . .

Specific impulse recovery coefficient ( M c t i o n of ideal I for initial chamber SP condlt ions)

Mss of nuclear device

Cr
E

Pressure vessel mass t o nuclear yield r a t i o Propellant t a h b g e fraction Propellast mixture entalw/energy r a t i o Waste mass fraction

0.70

0.025 tons (50 lb)

21.3 tons/ton eq.

00 .5

00 .

Cost of each nuclear device Specific enthalpy of propellant Specific enthalpy of nuc1ea.r device residue
Effective atomic weight of nuclear device residue

Cost of placing Mo i n orbit

..

12

I
here. Wble 1 lists calculated results based on the values given above series of different d u e s 0% 1 togeaer w i a ~ Reqding f r o m top t o SP, bottom, it will be seen that as I decreases, the fraction of hyeogen SP decreases, the energy yield per charge decreases, the total number of

charges increases, and the weight i n orbit and total cost go through minim

i n each of which oneor more of the basic parameters xias varied, Table 2 lists the essential results of each calculation, showing first the whole s e t of system characteristics copresponding t o the minimum cost for each set; and then N, Mo, and I) f o r minimum total mass.
A number of siniilar cases-were c&uted,

(this table repeats and extends one given i n ADN No. 37).

how the total mass in orbit varies w i t h the number of charges fired. the figure eugegsta,-~thereis a mlmimm valw of Ei for 64Loh set of

Figure 1is taken from the tabulated data of fcable 1 and shows ,

AB

parameters, and it i s approached as the propellant mixture approaches pure hydrogen. t h i s condition.
The t o t a l system mass unfortunately approaches i n f i n i t y for

The physical reasons can easily be seen:

The energy

must be introduced i n discrete packages, each bearing a mass E of non-

hydrogeneous material.

In order for the m i x t u r e t o approach pure

must also became very large, in direct proportion, and so must t h e mass of t h e pressure vessel, The latter becomes essentially the entire s y s t e m . weight after burnout, and becawe of the fixed mass r a t t o (pure hydrogen
a t fixed T, p), the i n i t i a l mass Mo and the total propellant mass tncrease

hydrogen, the amount of hydrogen per charge must become very large. Then the necessary energy yield p r charge t o reach the desired temperature e

i n proportion t o the vessel mass, the yield, and t h e mass of p r o p l l a n t per charge. The t o t a l propellant mass being proportional to the mss per charge, IT nust be constant in t h i s limit.

An analytic approach w i l l help t o indicate the effects of the various system parameters on the number of charges:
From equations

5 and 6,

and from 8, 9, and 1 , 0

-. .

Combining these with equation 7 leads to

which upon rearrangement of tenus can be written

B '"Mf - _l+&o T c = Mo

u 3 2% .7
g1

cr2

(l+d) N

(p-1)

t h e form

without involving the qpantity which renders equation 12 useless when the propellant m i x t u r e approaches pure hydrogen. In this case, the q u a n t i t i e s z p y and 2 approach f i n i t e limits, and equation 13 takes

which indicates the general form of the relationship between Mo and N

1x -,

us epalwte 'this limit:.

. I

showing that N does approach a fixed l i m i t as Mo becomes very large.

..
. .

Let

Mo-+

1Y

and from equation 3 we have

Then from t h i s and equation 4,

Combining 13 with 14 and

13 gives

As

a numerical -e l, mble 1 .

this is equal to 2500 for the basic system of

mlght offer means of reducing the value of N:

By examinirsg equations 16 and

17 one can see which prameters

T e pressure shell mass/yield, a, i s cleesly of the first h

tmpmtance&s.-ww3

made eazlier).

13, Table 2.
decrease p .

s i s confirmed by the results of problem

Avzm *the pbcpsiical.,~scus

A n increase in chamber temperature w i l l increase h

See problems 1 4, 5, and 6. , .- . Tfie value of ~-r increases as d increases, the net effect . being to bring an increase i n N as seen in problem 1 , , 0

lower values of N,

exponential, so that higher temperatures permit somewhat

The latter effect predominates, being

and

The tankage fraction f3, being already small, has a weak effect on N . See problem 14,

Increases in the velocity recovery factor Cr act strongly, through p t o decrease N , . See problem 8.

tend t o change simultaneously i n a complicated way with the alteration of

I n the region of minimum Mo, a l l of the derived system parameters

nearlyany one independent variable, so that no useful simplication such The results l i s t e d as equation 17 i s available t o study influences on M through 15, i n which Mo vs N i s plotted f o r the m r i o u s problems run, with the curve f o r the base problem No. 1 shown dashed on each. Cautfon should i n Table 2 w i l l serve this purpose however, together with Figures 2
0

a t fixed I intervals. SP Some interesting features are seen i n the results represented by the figures:
a)

values of Table 2, since these may result only from the selection of values

be used i n making inferences fram small differences among the listed

from increased hydrogen dissociation, which permits a given d u e t o be achieved, at a given temperature, with a Is* m I e ~ &I ;eixect ~* will be a t least partly cancelled by an effect not taken
i n t o account i n these calculations, namely the e f f e c t of this increased dissociation i n raising the effective value b)
Increasing the temperature up t o about 70' 00

Reduction of the chamber pressure, as by using Large chamber mdius, appears t o give improved performance. This results

of w and the pressure vessel mass.

improvement i n performance. Going t o higher temperature values produces improvement a t a much slower r a t e (in the pressure range considered he&) since dissociation is nearly complete a t that point.
increases i n M
carrying higher payloads requires roughly proportional
0 '

gives a marked

.
s.

c)

but only a very slow increase i n the

higher energy yields can be used, so that each nuclear

efgiclently applid.

number of ctaanges I?.

This has t o do with the f a c t that

Improved e x i t velocity recovery C a c t s strongly to reduce both r N and Mo. The effective atomic weight (hence specific enthalpy) of the
make up a relatively small fraction of the propellant mixture.
f)

device residue i s of l i t t l e importance, since it tends t o

Ten percent .waste propellant (d) causes more than a t e n percent increase i n mfssion cost.
Although increases

o v e r a l l system m s fairly rapidly when the propellant hydrogen as

i n the nuclear device mass

E tend t o increase

fraction is low, they have relative* region of m i n i m cost.

only a ?$ increase i n t o t a l cost D.

l i t t l e effect on Moo

Note that a W$ increase i n E produced

slight effect i n the

The vessel mass/yield r a t i o w affects N very strongly, but has

N and Mo are relatively insensitive t o changes i n the hydrogen

JWR: sd
1 E Goldberg . .
H. Reynolds/File H. Reyndlds/File 6. S, Ke7. J Foster . 8. J Radcliffe . 9. T Merkle . 1 . W B Myers 0 . . l l o A. RotSeries A -23/A Series Series 6/6C Series 2 6/6D Series E 8/83

3.. H. Reynolds
4 , 54

20

J* Hadley

13. T. Stubbs 1 . C. L&th 6 17, R levee .

21.

12.

G. St. Leger-Earter

R Duff . 1 . T Wainwright . 5 .
1. 4
.

18. J Kane . 19. W Wells . 20. M Mintz .

23.

2. 2

G. Pierce W Bo C m ~ l e y . To B !Taylor General Atomics .

G,2s+

4 %

--

Table 1

Performance with standard parameters fixed as listed in text, and varying specific impulse.

x 0.97
0.88

c1 -

. 63 .
2. 71

c -

P
2000

1262

3.8
42 .

0.79 07 .0 06 .1 05 .2
03 .4

04 .3

8.0 10.3 14.4

k7 5. 5 6.5

3.1 18 .
12 .

163

121
226

69 91

578

646

08 .

0.5 0.3

324 490

800

374 348 346 364

405

445

135
67 39
25
3.l

569
528 5%) 955
723

17
7

1358
2n9

Notat ion :

IJ,

Y N M C P M S
M

Initiaf/fiaal mass r a t i o

Energy yield p r charge, tons TIJT equivalent e

Number of charges

-.

Total mass of nuclear devices, tons Total hydrogen propellant mass, tons ~ S Of pressure Shell, t a s S Total initial system mass, tons
Cost, millions o dollars f

Table 2
Effects of k e t e r Variations

Minimum D

Minimum Mo

NO -

PrOb

I N
Baee case l?ressure 100 Pressure 1000 Temp. 5ooo Temp. 7000 'pemp. 8OOo
Hxed mass 100
1200

D
7

_ _ I

1 0 0.76 x 11% . 0.85

1000

0.79

4.7'
4.2

6 7 8
10 12

1350 14%
1300

0.83 0.74 0.72

0.88

6.5
4.0 3.6
4.2

51 .

3.1 3.3
4.2

4800
4620

121

115
109

cr 0.8

1400

3, 3

13 14 16

W e e at. w t . 5 1200 lo$ waste-mass 1200 0.79 T0,OOO ft/sec Av 1200 0.78 M c e mass 6 75 lb. 1200 0.79 vessel mass/yield 13 1200 . 0.79 0.79 Tankage fraction i$ 1.200 T8000, p 1000 atm 1400 0.75

0.81 0.75

3.8 4.7 5.7 3.6 4.7 4.7 4.7. 3.8

2.8 3.3 3.5 6.3 3.7

2.6

4370

4580 4420 4330 3340

5730

143 114

i n

5240

3.1 4.7
31 .
31 .

31 .

3270

5430

io8 83 131 136

82

445 367 640 722 331 287 768 364 383

67

90 60 70 75 135

70

717 634 933 lQ.a4!! 594 549

11% 608

528 484 696 467 441 677

410
592

6%0

90 67 301 67
560 377 478 330

80 56

651

853

3.7

4b50 4100 $190

152
102

100

527

902

43%

130

109

47 67 78

607 770 596

522 613 374 !%4 448 568

4%

5840 6390 9550 7120 6330 8930 5480 7190

7440 6890

658

583 770 546 495 900

960

51 80
5780
7050
6%0

608 797 468 776 583

710

511

590 525 627 861 574. 515 807

602

478
690

655

478
522
636

526

538

See Table 1 for notation

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