CRYOGENICS

CRYOGENICS & ITS APPLICATION IN ROCKET

ENGINE

By : Kiran Ad (11BCL002)
Ankit Mata (12BCL161)
What is CRYOGENICS Technology ?

It is the study of the production and behaviour of

materials at very low temperatures
Temperatures below (-150 C, - 238 F, 123 K)
Study of how to produce low temperatures
The study of what happens to materials when you have
cooled them down
BRIEF HISTORY
The field of cryogenics advanced during World War II when scientists found that metals
frozen to low temperatures showed more resistance to wear
The United States was the first country to develop cryogenic rocket engines.
with RL-10 engines, registered its first successful flight in 1963 and is still used on the
Atlas V rocket.
Then The Japanese LE-5 engine flew in 1977 ,French HM-7 in 1979 , Chinese YF-73 in
1984 .
The Soviet Union, first country to put a satellite and later a human in space, successfully
launched a rocket with a cryogenic engine only in 1987.
History in India
Right now India have got great success in this technology
But during 1991-92, India faced many problems to get Cryogenic Engine from Russia.
To India the U.S., Japan and France were not agree to provide the technology or do
so only at an exorbitant price.
The deal violated the Missile Technology Control Regime, which was intended to
prevent the spread of missile-related technology, and fell foul of the U.S. laws meant
to enforce its provisions. Despite warnings from within the organization, ISRO opted to
go ahead with the import. In May 1992, the U.S. imposed sanctions on ISRO and
Glavkosmos. A year later, Russia, which received the contract after the break-up
of the Soviet Union, backed out of the deal.
ISRO then had no option but to develop the technology on its
own.
At the time, ISRO gave the impression that much of the
technology had already been acquired and further
development would be quick.
Since then India took it as a challenge to develop own
technology.
After many failure, finally on 5 January 2014. India mastered
this technology.
And became the sixth country in world after U.S., Russia,
Japan, France, and China to master this technology
APPLICATION IN ROCKET ENGINE
A cryogenic rocket engine is a rocket engine that uses a cryogenic
fuel or oxidizer, that is, its fuel or oxidizer (or both) is gases
liquefied and stored at very low temperatures
During World War II, when powerful rocket engines were first
considered by the German, American and Soviet engineers
independently, all discovered that rocket engines need high mass
flow rate of both oxidizer and fuel to generate a sufficient thrust.
Various cryogenic fuel-oxidizer combinations have been tried, but
the combination of liquid hydrogen (LH2} fuel and the liquid oxygen
(LOX} oxidizer is one of the most widely used.
The first operational cryogenic engine
WORKING OF CRYOGENIC ENGINE
It involves a complicated staged combustion cycle' to increase the engine
efficiency.

Hydrogen is partially burnt with a little oxygen in a gas generator. The hot
gases drive a turbo-pump and are then injected at high pressure into the
thrust chamber where the rest of oxygen is introduced and full combustion
takes place.

Before going to the gas generator, the incredibly chilly liquid hydrogen is
used to cool the thrust chamber where temperatures rise to over 3,300
Celsius when the engine is fired.
ADVANTAGES
High Energy per unit mass:
Propellants like oxygen and hydrogen in liquid form give very high amounts of
energy per unit mass due to which the amount of fuel to be carried aboard the
rockets decreases.

Clean Fuels
Hydrogen and oxygen are extremely clean fuels. When they combine, they give
out only water. This water is thrown out of the nozzle in form of very hot vapour.
Thus the rocket is nothing but a high burning steam engine

Economical
Use of oxygen and hydrogen as fuels is very economical, as liquid oxygen costs
less than gasoline.
LIMITATIONS

Low temperature of propellants -Complex storage

Transfer systems and operations

Need for ignition system

Overall cost of propellants relatively high

Highly reactive gases
Cryogens are highly concentrated gases and have a very high reactivity. Liquid oxygen,
which is used as an oxidizer, combines with most of the organic materials to form
explosive compounds. So lots of care must be taken to ensure safety
Leakage
One of the most major concerns is leakage. At cryogenic temperatures, which are
roughly below 150 degrees Kelvin or equivalently (-190) degrees Fahrenheit, the seals
of the container used for storing the propellants lose the ability to maintain a seal
properly. Hydrogen, being the smallest element, has a tendency to leak past seals or
materials.
Future of Rocket Engines
All rocket engines burn their fuel to generate thrust . If any other engine can
generate enough thrust, that can also be used as a rocket engine
There are a lot of plans for new engines that the NASA scientists are still working
with. One of them is the Xenon ion Engine. This engine accelerate ions or
atomic particles to extremely high speeds to create thrust more efficiently. NASA's
Deep Space-1 spacecraft will be the first to use ion engines for propulsion.
There are some alternative solutions like Nuclear thermal rocket engines, Solar
thermal rockets, the electric rocket etc.
We are looking forward that in the near future there will be some good
technology to take us into space