• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.62-70
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• 2015

A liquid rocket engine system can cause rapid pressure and temperature variations during the startup period. Thus the startup analysis is required to reduce time and expense for successful development of liquid rocket engine through the startup prediction. In this study, a startup analysis simulator is developed for a staged combustion cycle engine powerpack. This simulator calculates propellant flow rates using pressure and flow rate balances. In addition, a rotational speed of turbopump is obtained as a function of time by mathematical modeling. A startup analysis result shows that the time to reach a steady-state and a rotational speed at the steady-state are 1.3 sec and 27,500 rpm, respectively. Moreover it can indicate proper startup sequences for stable operation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.74-80
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• 2008

The feasibility study into the development of turbine spinners, which start up the turbo-pump, has been carried out and the design requirements and parameters ranges have been presented. Turbine spinners use the solid propellant as such composite propellant based AN compound with high energy plasticizers, coolants, and phase stabilizer which relieves a sensible volume change due to the phase transformation of AN near room temperature. Propellants which have a homing rate of $0.2{\sim}0.3\;mm/s$ and pressure exponent ranged from 0.3 to 0.6, showed stable burn-out in the standard motor tests. Both the magnitude of ignition energy and its thermal transfer mechanism have been proved to have a tangible effect on the ignition of the pyre starter, and the results of this study showed that a flame temperature of 1400K would be quite adequate to get a stable ignition for the AN composite propellant.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.561-565
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• 2009

The performance of supersonic impulse turbine was investigated experimentally. Experiment was performed with the compressed air instead of the high temperature burned gas because of the limitation of test facility and danger. As a result of the experiment with the compressed air, the performance in the real gas(burned gas) was predicted by the similarity method. The nozzle area of prototype turbine was calculated based on the real gas. So, it is difficult to satisfy the similarity conditions completely. Two similarity conditions were set and the design point for real gas was existed between two similarity conditions. And, the new turbine test model with calculated nozzle area based on the compressed air was tested. Therefore, similarity point of the new turbine test model was also existed between above two similarity points. It means that the design point for real gas was similar to the test point with the new turbine model.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2012

In the turbopump inducer of a liquid propellant rocket engine, cavitation is affected by acceleration that occurs during an actual launch sequence. Since cavitation instabilities such as rotating cavitations and cavitation surges are suppressed during launch, it is difficult to obtain data on the influence of acceleration on cavitation instabilities. Therefore, as a fundamental investigation, in the present study, a three-blade cyclic cascade is simulated numerically in order to investigate the influence of acceleration on time-averaged and unsteady characteristics of cavitation that arise in cascade. Several cases of acceleration in the axial direction of the cascade, including accelerations in the upstream and downstream directions, are considered. The numerical results reveal that cavity volume is suppressed in low cavitation number condition and cavitation performance increases as a result of high acceleration in the axial-downstream direction, also, the inverse tendency is observed in the axial-upstream acceleration. Then, the regions in which the individual cavitation instabilities occur shift slightly to a low-cavitation-number region as the acceleration increases downstream. In addition, in a downstream acceleration field, neither sub-synchronous rotating cavitation nor rotating-stall cavitation are observed. On the other hand, rotating-stall cavitation occurs in a relatively higher-cavitation-number region in an upstream acceleration field. Then, acceleration downstream is robust against cavitation instabilities, whereas cavitation instabilities easily occur in the case of acceleration upstream. Additionally, comparison with the Froude number under the actual launch conditions of a Japanese liquid propellant rocket reveals that the cavitation performance will not be affected by the acceleration under the current launch conditions.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.194-204
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• 2016

Floating ring seals offer an opportunity to reduce leakage flows significantly in rotating machinery. Accordingly, they have been applied successfully to rotating machinery within the last several decades. For rocket turbopump applications, fundamental behavior and design philosophy have been revealed. However, further work is needed to explore the rotordynamic characteristics associated with rotor vibrations. In this study, rotordynamic forces for floating ring seals under rotor's whirling motions are calculated to elucidate rotordynamic characteristics. Comparisons between numerical simulation results and experiments demonstrated in our previous report are carried out. The three-dimensional Reynolds equation is solved by the finite-difference method to calculate hydrodynamic pressure distributions and the leakage flow rate. The entrance loss at the upstream inlet of the seal ring is calculated to estimate the Lomakin effect. The friction force at the secondary seal surface is also considered. Numerical simulation results showed that the rotordynamic forces of this type of floating ring seal are determined mainly by the friction force at the secondary seal surface. The seal ring is positioned almost concentrically relative to the rotor by the Lomakin effect. Numerical simulations agree quite well with the experimental results.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.64-75
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• 2008

During an experimental investigation on a 3-bladed and a 4-bladed axial inducer, a severe surge instability was observed in a range of cavitation number where the blade passage is choked and the inducer head is decreased from noncavitating value. The surge was stronger for the 4-bladed inducer as compared with a 3-bladed inducer with the same inlet and outlet blade angles. For the 4-bladed inducer, the head decreases suddenly as the cavitation number is decreased. The surge was observed after the sudden drop of head. This head drop was found to be associated with a rapid extension of tip cavity into the blade passage. The cause of surge is attributed to the decrease of the negative slope of the head-flow rate performance curve due to choke. Assuming that the difference between the 3 and 4-bladed inducers is caused by the difference of the blockage effects of the blade, a test was carried out by thickening the blades of the 3-bladed inducer. However, opposite to the expectations, the head drop became smoother and the instability disappeared on the thickened blade inducer. Examination of the pressure distribution on both inducers could not explain the difference. It was pointed out that two-dimensional cavitating flow analyses predict smaller breakdown cavitation number at higher flow rates, if the incidence angle is smaller than half of the blade angle. This causes the positive slope of the performance curve and suggests that the choked surge as observed in the present study might occur in more general cases.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.35 no.9
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• pp.816-825
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• 2007

With a view to building up a program used in conceptual design of liquid rocket engine system, a preliminary performance-based code for an integrated engine system has been developed by incorporating sub-modular programs for each essential engine component. Modular descriptions for each component were formulated mathematically with essential parameters. In the whole iterative circuits for predicting engine performance, matching conditions of mass flow rate and pressure drop through each engine component have been considered. Mass balance calculations at each inter-component boundary are found smoothly converged. All the pressure drops through engine components as a function of mass flow rate are added up to provide turbo-pump outlet condition. In this paper, the flow chart for each iterative circuit and design methodologies are presented. Resultant predictions are validated with real engine data.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.25-37
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• 2005

For pump-fed rocket propulsion system, the temperature of LOX to be supplied to turbopump inlet should be satisfied with pump inlet temperature requirement during all operating stages, as excessive temperatures can result in cavitation due to reduction in NPSH, thus either damaging the pump or adversely affecting pump performance rise. So exact estimation of LOX temperature rise is absolutely needed for developing reliable propulsion system. This paper presents systematic analysis scheme for estimating inner process of cryogenic propellant tank which is needed for LOX temperature rise. And this paper presents LOX temperature rise and thermal stratification for all rocket operating stages including cooling, filling, waiting, pre-pressurization and firing, with the application of buoyancy driven boundary layer theory.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.19-28
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• 2011

As a preview study, present research analysed the performance characteristics of a velocity compound supersonic impulse turbine with the rotor overlaps before adapting the overlap has the best turbine performance. This research was conducted for the turbine with square cross-section nozzles instead of axisymmetric nozzles and wrap around nozzles. Through 3-dimensional flow analysis for the turbine by a commercial flow analysis package, tip overlap case was more effective to improve the turbine performance than case hub overlap, and overlap case applied the hub and tip of the rotor had the largest improvement for the turbine performance in the cases. In case of overlap for the 2nd stage rotor, improvement of the turbine performance was not visibly large. Because, generated power in the 2nd stage is 22~23% of whole generated turbine power.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.60-71
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• 2007

The startup characteristic of liquid propellant rocket engine should be focused on the stable ignition of combustion chamber and gas generator. Also, to lessen the propellants consumption during this period which doesn't contribute to the flight thrust, the engine has to be transferred to the nominal mode quickly. Because of the risk of test, it is impossible to develop all the startup cyclogram or the specifications of engine by test, so the precedent numerical approach is quite necessary. In this study we developed a mathematical model for the startup phenomena in a liquid rocket engine driven by gas generator-turbopump system based on the commercial 1-D flow system analysis program, Flowmaster. Using this program we proposed a methodology to obtain the specifications of turbine starter and the opening time of shutoff valves for the stable startup of the engine. To verify this methodology we qualitatively compared the analysis results to the typical startup curve of the published engine, then found it is quite well matched.