CRYOGENIC ROCKET ENGINE

PRESENTED BY B.VENKATESH P. SASANKA G.VAMSIDHAR

REGENCY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY YANAM

What is Cryogenics ?

Cryogenics is the study of the production of very low temperature(below 150 C, 238 F or 123 K) and the behavior of materials at those temperatures .

Cryogenic technology
o Cryogenic technology involves the use of rocket propellants at extremely low temperatures. o The combination of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen offers the highest

energy efficiency for rocket engines that need to produce large amounts
of thrust. o Oxygen remains a liquid only at temperatures below -183 Celsius and hydrogen at below -253 Celsius.

History of Cryogenic Technology

The United States was the first country to develop cryogenic rocket

engines.
with RL-10 engines, registered its first successful flight in 1963 used on the Atlas V rocket. and is still

Then The Japanese LE-5 engine flew in 1977 ,French HM-7 in 1979 ,
Chinese YF-73 in 1984 . The Soviet Union successfully launched a rocket with a cryogenic engine

only in 1987.

WHY PREFER

CRYOGENIC
OVER

NORMAL ENGINES..?

CRYOGENIC ENGINE THRUST IS MORE LESSER FUEL CONSUMPTION

NORMAL ENGINE THRUST IS LESS MORE FUEL CINSUMPTION

Major components
Combustion chamber Fuel injector Fuel cryopumps Oxidizer cryopumps Gas turbine Regulators Fuel tanks Nozzle

The first operational cryogenic engine

Cont.

(Russian) - N 1

(AMERICAN) - ATLAS V

Working
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.

SCHEMATIC OF CRYOGRENIC ENGINE

Cycle of operation
Before going to the gas generator, the incredibly chilly liquid hydrogen is used to cool the thrust chamber where temperatures rise to over 3,000 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 rocket 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.

Drawbacks:
Boil off Rate Highly reactive gases Hydrogen Embrittlement Zero Gravity conditions

Leakage

Production & Manufacturing

The Indian cryogenic engine was produced by Godrej and the Hyderabad-

based MTAR Technologies.

Instead of ISRO first mastering the technology and transferring it to industry, the two companies were involved from the start and even the

early prototypes were built by them.

EVOLUTION OF INDEGENOUS CRYOGENIC TECHNOLOGY IN INDIA

India had launched five GSLV satellites into space (between 2001 to 2007), all of them powered by Russian cryogenic engines. The US, Europe, Japan and China are averse to sharing the technology. Russia favoured a deal with India , but after forming a new government USSR, the deal has been modified. India tried to develop the technology on its own.

CONT.

Over the last 17 years, Indian scientists, most of them at ISROs liquid propulsion centre in Thiruvananthapuram, worked on what was termed CUSP, cryogenic upper stage project.

The first trail , GSLV D3, which lifted off

well from Sriharikota on, April 15, 2010 failed to ignite.

Since 2010 ,four successful ground tests have been conducted.

On May 2012 , India successfully tested CL 20 for 1000 endurance seconds.

PSLV-C20 25-2-2013

CE 20 CRYOGENIC ENGINE BY INDIA

ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan FEBRUARY 25th PSLV-C20

The next generation of the 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.

Any Queries