Power plants – Reaction motor – Method of operation
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-15
2002-07-09
Gartenberg, Ehud (Department: 3746)
Power plants
Reaction motor
Method of operation
C060S257000, C060S039461
Reexamination Certificate
active
06415596
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to the field of rocketry and, more specifically, to power units with liquid-propellant rocket engines.
BACKGROUND
Known in the art and widely used in launch vehicles for various applications are liquid-propellant rocket engines operating on liquid oxygen and such hydrocarbon fuel, as kerosene. These fuel components are used, for instance, by US liquid-propellant rocket engine LR-105-NA (see the “Kosmonavtika” encyclopedia, Moscow, 1985, page 218, article LR-105-NA). This engine has a specific impulse of 2153 m/s on the ground, and 3025 m/s in vacuum. Let us assume that the method of getting the specific impulse from interaction of the aforesaid fuel components in the LR-105-NA liquid-propellant rocket engine is analogous to the method disclosed in the present invention. The disadvantage of the known method consists in that it fails to use a considerable reserve for increasing the specific impulse of the liquid-propellant rocket engine which could be exploited by finding a more effective hydrocarbon fuel than kerosene.
Known in the art is liquid-propellant rocket engine RD-301 of the GDL-OKB design (see the “Kosmonavtika” encyclopedia, Moscow, 1985, page 331, article RD-301). This engine uses liquid fluorine as oxidant and liquid ammonia as fuel. The engine specific impulse in vacuum is equal to 3928 m/s.
Let us assume that the method of getting the specific impulse from interaction of the aforesaid fuel components in the RD-301 liquid-propellant rocket engine is analogous to the method disclosed in the present invention. The known method is deficient in that the use of such effective fuel components as ammonia and fluorine in the aforesaid engine calls for a considerable sophistication of the design of many of its accessories, units and components as compared with a similar engine operating on a combination of liquid oxygen and such hydrocarbon fuel as kerosene. Besides, what with today's technological level in rocketry, the use of the known method for increasing the engine specific impulse would tend to raise the cost of research and development work and, in the final count, would make the accomplishment of concrete projects too expensive.
US patents also disclose a number of technical solutions pertaining to the improvement of fuel components for liquid-propellant rocket engines. Specifically, this problem is dealt with in the inventions disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,097,479, 3,127,735, 3,230,700, which are also assumed here as analogous to the method disclosed in the present invention. The aforesaid analogous art gives no indication of the use of fuel in liquid oxygen rocket engines that would be similar to kerosene, but provide a higher specific impulse.
Liquid oxygen and kerosene are used as fuel components by known liquid-propellant rocket engine RD-107 of the GDL-OKB design (see the “Kosmonavtika” encyclopedia, Moscow, 1985, pages 327-329, article RD-107). This engine has a specific impulse of 2520 m/s on the ground, and 3080 m/s in vacuum. We shall assume the method of getting the aforesaid specific impulse from the interaction of the aforementioned fuel components used in the RD-107 liquid-propellant rocket engine as the prototype of the proposed method in the present invention. The shortcoming of this prior art method consists in that it fails to exploit the available reserve for improving the specific impulse of the liquid-propellant rocket engine by using a hydrocarbon fuel that would be more effective than kerosene and would not call for any essential and radical changes in the engine design.
Recent years have been marked by the increasing popularity of rocket power units with liquid-propellant rocket engines. A power unit of this kind was described, for instance, in the monograph “Launch vehicles” (ed. Prof. S. O. Osipov), Moscow, 1981, Voenizdat, Chapter 6, pages 202-203. FIG. 6.1 of this monograph illustrates diagrammatically a power unit with a turbo-pump system for supply of fuel components. This power unit includes a liquid-propellant rocket engine comprising a turbo-pump system for supply of oxidant and fuel, an oxidant tank and a fuel tank, as well as automatic control system components. The fuel tank is filled with the required quantity of fuel, whereas the oxidant tank carries the required quantity of oxidant.
Let us assume that this power unit is analogous to the proposed rocket power unit. The analogous art is deficient in that it fails to indicate definite fuel components for which the power unit in question was designed, wherefore the efficiency of said power unit cannot be evaluated.
Known in the art is a 1
st
stage power unit of the American Saturn-I launch vehicle (see the “Kosmonavtika” encyclopedia, chief editor V. P. Glushko, Moscow, 1985, page 322, article “Rocket power unit”; page 346, article “Saturn”; and page 444, article “N-1”).
This 1st stage power unit consists of 8 liquid-propellant rocket engines N-1 and runs on two-component fuel (the oxidant being liquid oxygen). The engine is provided with a turbo-pump fuel supply system. The rocket engine power unit in question also comprises oxidant and fuel tanks and automatic control equipment. The oxidant tank is filled with the required amount of liquid oxygen, whereas the fuel tank carries the corresponding amount of hydrocarbon fuel (kerosene).
We shall assume this technical solution to be analogous to the proposed rocket power unit. The prior art is deficient in that the fuel tank in the known power unit is filled with kerosene which is not the best fuel for this unit.
Known in the art is a 1
st
rocket power unit of the R-9 intercontinental ballistic missile which uses fuel consisting of two main components, oxygen and kerosene (see the book entitled “Rocket-space corporation Energy named after S. P. Korolev”, ed. Semionov Yu. P., 1996, pages 121 and 122).
The oxidant tank of the R-9 missile is filled with the required amount of liquid oxygen, whereas the fuel tank carries the corresponding amount of hydrocarbon fuel (kerosene).
We shall assume this technical solution to be the prototype of the proposed rocket power unit. The prototype is deficient in that its fuel tank is filled with kerosene which is not the best fuel for this unit, as the specific impulse in its liquid-propellant rocket engine can be higher.
SUMMARY
It is an object of the present invention to identify a hydrocarbon fuel which would have physical, chemical and service properties approximating to those of kerosene and make it possible to increase the specific impulse in the liquid-propellant rocket engine using liquid oxygen and kerosene as fuel components without appreciable changes in its design.
This task was prompted by the feasibility of effective renovation of liquid-propellant rocket engines and rocket power units with such engines operating on oxygen-kerosene fuel components.
The results of theoretical and experimental studies have shown that a combination of hydrocarbon fuel having a polycyclic structure with oxygen may increase the heating capacity of fuel due to the optimization of the carbon-hydrogen ratio in fuel and the enthalpy of its formation from these elements.
The hydrocarbon fuel sought is dicyclobutyl (C
8
H
14
) which, when used with liquid oxygen, may increase the specific impulse in the RD-107 liquid-propellant rocket engine mentioned above by approximately 2%.
The essence of the disclosed method for increasing the specific impulse in a liquid-propellant rocket engine consists in that the liquid-propellant rocket engine designed for operation on oxygen and liquid hydrocarbon fuel is supplied with liquid oxygen as oxidizer and dicyclobutyl (C
8
H
14
) as hydrocarbon fuel. The physical, chemical and service properties of dicyclobutyl (high density, boiling and freezing points, thermal stability, cooling properties) come near to those of kerosene thereby making it a good substitute.
As regards liquid-propellant rocket engines, the proposed method has the advantage of increasing the engine specific impulse over the methods of operating engines on l
Anufriev Vladimir Serapionovich
Batalin Oleg Efimovich
Chelkis Felix Jurievich
Chernykh Sergei Prokopievich
Finkelshtein Evgeny Shmerovich
Fish & Richardson P.C.
Gartenberg Ehud
Otkrytoe Aktsionernoe Obschestvo ″NPO Energomash imeni aka
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