SIZING OF A LIQUID ROCKET

ENGINE
Space propulsion and power systems
Abstract
In the following document the sizing of a LRE will be discussed, considering 2 different propellant
configurations (MMH-NTO and LH2-LOx) and some geometrical variations (changes of nozzle
throat size) in order to obtain the work parameters and understand the behavior of the engine
under those different conditions

Andres David Forero Cano

816285

Exercise input data and requirements

A LRE (Liquid Rocket Engine) operates under the following conditions

Propellant: MMH (Mono-Methyl Hydrazine)-NTO (Nitrogen Tetroxide)

Thrust at optimum expansion altitude ( = 10000): ( ) = 50000 + 1000 ) =

51000
Combustion chamber pressure: = (5.0 + 0.1 ) = 5.1
Burning time: = (300 + 10 ) = 360

Consider a frozen, gas phase mixture. When needed, assume typical values for the required
parameters and justify your hypotheses/assumptions. The given data depend on the parameters
N, and C respectively indicating the alphabetical position of the first letter of candidate name and
family name.
Requirements
1. Preliminary engine sizing for z = z*. Evaluate the specific impulse, the nozzle throat and exhaust
section areas and velocities, the initial amount and mass flow rates of fuel and oxidizer, the
propellant tank volumes, the feed line (blowdown configuration), and injector head
characteristics.
2. Compare the achieved thrust chamber and nozzle sizes of the MMH-NTO engine with those of a
LRE working under similar operating conditions but using H2-O2 as a propellant. For this latter
engine, please perform a preliminary sizing of the cooling system.
3. For both systems, evaluate specific impulses and thrusts under vacuum condition (keeping the
sizing results coming from the optimum expansion at z = z*).
4. Considering the MMH-NTO engine sized in 1., what is the thrust achieved under vacuum if the
throat area is increased of 7% with respect to the original design value?

1,2-Sizing of systems MMH-NTO and LH2-LOx

The sizing of the engine for both propellant pairs will be done with the same algorithm, therefore
the procedure is the same and the changes will be applied to the numerical data.
To start the sizing, some assumptions must be considered in order to obtain enough data to work,
our first assumption will be that the mixture ratio is a standard mixture ratio defined for each
propellant pair (Sutton table 5.5) and with these ratios, we have also defined each , and
[]

MMH-NTO
LH2-LOx

2.15
4.02

3396
2999

[ ]
22.3
10

1.23
1.26

Remembering that the pressure affects the flame temperature and molar mass, but that at high
pressures the behavior becomes asymptotic, these data will be considered reliable as the chamber
pressure is high and close to the value assumed by Sutton.
Now the properties of the combustion must be found, the assumption of perfect gas will be made
in order to find the density.
=

After which the characteristic velocity is found.

=

()

+1

2 1
)
+1

Where () = (

So we have found until now:

[]

[3 ]
MMH-NTO
LH2-LOx

4.0281
2.0454

1719.7
2392.7

Now we cant find more from the combustion chamber, we go to the nozzle, considering that our
exit pressure is the same pressure as the atmospheric pressure at the optimal altitude, we can
obtain our parameters of merit of the nozzle, such as exit velocity, Mach number at the exit,
temperature at the exit, specific impulse (theoretical and delivered), mass flow rate of the
propellant and thrust coefficient.

We start with our exit velocity.

=
Where the limit velocity is:
= 2

And:
1

=1( )

Followed by this, the Mach number is:

1

= [( )

1]

2
1

And the exit temperature is:

=

1 2
(1 +
)
2

After these have been found, we go with the most important parameter of merit, the specific
impulse, which will be given as the theoretical (ideal) and delivered which will consider a little loss
of 3%:
, =

, = ,
As an important consideration, from now on the specific impulse used for all the calculations will be
the delivered unless otherwise stated.
Now to find the mass flow rate of propellant:
=

And the thrust coefficient:

2
= ()
1
But knowing that this is an ideal result, and that the specific impulse depends on the characteristic
velocity, the gravity and the thrust coefficient, we have to assume that the losses are taken by the
3

thrust coefficient, therefore our delivered thrust coefficient (to be used in all calculations from now
on unless otherwise specified)
, =
At this point we have available these results:
MMH-NTO
LH2-LOx

[]
2911.6
4000.5

, []
288
395.6

8.815
3.883

[]
19.82
14.43

1.642
1.621

Now we find the geometrical parameters of the nozzle such as the expansion ratio, the throat and
exhaust area, and we can also compute our geometrical parameters of the combustion chamber,
such as the cross area, the diameter and the cooling lateral area of the chamber
1

1
+ 1 1 + 1

=
=(
)
( )
[1 ( )

2

From here, we obtain the throat and exhaust area:

=
With our throat area we can use a rule of thumb that allow us to have the cross area of the
combustion chamber, which is:
= 5
And knowing this area and the mass flow rate of propellant, we can find the diameter of the
combustion chamber and the velocity in the combustion chamber:
4
=

Our geometrical parameters following these calculations are:

MMH-NTO
LH2-LOx

18.2
16.9

[3 ]
0.0067
0.0068

[3 ]
0.1217
0.1147

[3 ]
0.0334
0.0339

[]
0.2063
0.2063

[]
147.24
208.41

Now we have to do an assumption, and is the characteristic length of the combustion chamber L*,
which is a length related to the reaction, for the MMH-NTO case well pick 18 and for the LH2-LOx
well pick 30 using data from examples of similar engines in the Sutton table 8.1, with this length
4

we can calculate the volume of the combustion chamber and its real length, also we can calculate
the lateral area available for cooling:
=
=

=
Well also need the dimensions of the throat and exit area of the nozzle in order to calculate their
cooling areas which will be required for the cooling system pre-sizing, it must be considered that
the angle of the divergent is assumed to be 15 and of the convergent is 30
Diameter throat:
4
=

Diameter exit:
4
=

Length divergent part of nozzle:

=

1
2 tan

Sliding length of divergent:

,

= ( ) + 2
2
2

Length convergent:
=

1
2 tan

Sliding length of convergent:

,

= (

2
) + 2
2
2

Lateral area of convergent useful for cooling:

, = (
) ,
2
Lateral area of divergent for cooling:
5


, = (
) ,
2
And as an extra, we can have the length of the full engine (combustion chamber and nozzle)
= + +
Our cooling areas parameters and length of engine are as follows:

MMH-NTO
LH2-LOx

Lateral
area
convergent [2 ]
0.0535
0.0533

Lateral area
divergent [2 ]
0.4443
0.4168

Lateral area combustion

chamber [2 ]
0.0593
0.0988

Total length
engine [m]
0.7526
0.7904

For the sizing of the tanks, the properties at boiling point of the cryogenic propellants will be used,
in case of storable propellants, a temperature of 293 K will be considered, first, we start with the
mass flow rates of both the fuel and oxidizer
= +
Oxidizer/fuel ratio:
= /
Mass flow rates of oxidizer and fuel
=

+1

+1

And considering the densities given by Sutton for each fuel and oxidizer (table 7.1 sutton), we can
obtain the average density of our mixture and our volumetric flow rates, final masses and final
volumes for the tanks (adding a 5% as a safety measure)
=

(1 + )
+

Volumetric flow rates of oxidizer and fuel:

=

Mass of fuel and oxidizer:

= 1.05
= 1.05
6

Total volumes of fuel and oxidizer:

= 1.05
1.05
=
Our tank properties are as follows:
MMH-NTO
LH2-LOx

[]
2.3794
1.0867

[3 ]
2.7075
15.3051

[]
5.1156
4.3684

[3 ]
3.5353
3.8319

Now we have enough data to do the cooling for the LH2-LOx system, first well considering the LH2
for cooling as the oxidizer would generate corrosion problems, and well assume a heat flux of 1
106 2 (allowable under Sutton parameters), well also assume an average specific heat of the
LH2 of 1.75 , our goal will be to find the temperature rise of the fuel in the cooling
process and the gradients of temperature assuming the limiting cases of 10 and 20 m/s in order to
avoid problems
Total heat transferred:
=
Heat gain of the fuel:
(2 1 ) =

Maximum and minimum area allowable to be cooled restricted by the velocity range allowable:
,, =

,,

Our pre-sized cooling system parameters are:

LH2 cooling

[]
27.03

Max area of cooling [2 ]

0.0040

Min area of cooling [2 ]

0.0020

Now we proceed with the sizing of the injectors, in order to do the preliminary sizing, well have to
do some assumptions, first well assume that our injector will be a short tubes with rounded edges
type, which give us a discharge coefficient of 0.88 for tubes of 1mm diameter, and well assume a
pressure loss of 0.1 times the pressure of the combustion chamber, first we find the combined area
of the injector for both fuel and oxidizer, after which we can find the area of a single injector ant the
maximum number of injector holes:
=

Area of a single injector hole:

7

 2
= (
)
2
Maximum number of holes in the injector:
=

Having these data, we can do a correction in order to have a precise diameter of the injectors
, =

max

And with the corrected data we can obtain the velocity of injection and the angles of impingement
that will give us zero angle of injection which at the same time will avoid internal 2D kinetics
= 2

If we assume the angle of impingement as zero, that will mean tan = 0, then by means of a
momentum balance we would have:
, sin = , sin
And by assuming a = 30, then we obtain our

Our data regarding the injection system would be:

MMH-NTO
LH2-LOx

Number
of
injectors
510
490

Diameter
injector
ox [mm]
1.7719
1.7731

Diameter
injector
fuel [mm]
1.3689
1.7702

Velocity
injector
ox [m/s]
23.36
26.32

Velocity
injector
fuel [m/s]
29.98
105.47

Angle of injection
fuel (assuming 30
angle ox) []
56.9
30.1

Now we require to size our feeding system, compromised of the piping and pressurization gas tank,
we have to start by computing our pressure losses of the overall system, from which well find the
pressures required on the propellant tanks and from this, doing an average of both results, we
obtain the pressure required of the pressurization tank (which will be filled with He as is more
expensive but also will give better performance [k=1.66])
Dynamic pressure loss:
1
= 2
2
Injector pressure loss:
= 0.5
8

Feeding system pressure loss:

= 0.5 ( )
Total pressure required on tanks:
= + + +
And our pressurizing tank will have the average:
=

, + ,
2

So we obtain these results:

MMH-NTO
LH2-LOx

pressure ox tank []
5.73
5.7177

pressure fuel tank []

5.7
5.66

pressure press tank []

5.71
5.69

Now we pass to the iterative process that is required in order to obtain the dimensions of the
pressurizing gas, as the exercise only ask this part for the MMH-NTO system, it will be done only for
such:
First we establish initial temperatures and pressures, respectively 200 K and 800 atm, with these
data we work on our iterative cycle:
( ) =
( ) =

,
,

,
,
,

The error must be lower than 3%, and is interpreted as:

=

( ) ( )
2

( )1

At the end of the iteration, a 5% extra is added in order to have an extra safety margin, and you
obtain:
= 1.05,
= 1.05,
= +
At the end, we obtain these results:
MMH-NTO

[3 ]
5.3417

[]
173.6

[3 ]
11.58

3-Evaluation of specific impulse under vacuum

This evaluation is made by correcting the thrust coefficient by adding the vacuum (static)
contribution, after which can be put on the definition of specific impulse:
, = +
,

=
0

We obtain the following results:

,
MMH-NTO
LH2-LOx

, []

1.7368
1.7097

304.6
417.2

4-Increase of throat area of MMH-NTO system by 7%

The increase of the throat area will give us a decrease in the expansion ratio, putting the engine in
the non-optimum expansion range, it can be calculated as:

1.07

From the expression of expansion coefficient you retrieve the new exit pressure:
1

+ 1 1 , + 1
,
=
=(
)
(
)
)
[1 (

And with the new pressure you retrieve the new mach number:
1

2
= (
)
1

After finding the mach number, you can follow the procedure similar to the sizing in order to find
the specific impulse, thrust and remaining parameters of merit, so after these calculations, the
following results are obtained:

10

1.7277

[]
303.03

[]
63038

1.7368

304.6

59224

MMH-NTO with 7% 17.01

extra throat area
MNH-NTO
18.2

We can observe that now to keep our parameters in the combustion chamber, a higher thrust is
required, and we decrease our specific impulse and thrust coefficient, but the losses on these two
parameters are low

11