CHAPTER 12 Materials for Liquid Propulsion Systems John A. Halchak Consultant, Los Angeles, California James L. Cannon NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama Corey Brown Aerojet-Rocketdyne, West Palm Beach, Florida 12.1 Introduction Earth to orbit launch vehicles are propelled by rocket engines and motors, both liquid and solid. This chapter will discuss liquid engines. The heart of a launch vehicle is its engine. The remainder of the vehicle (with the notable exceptions of the payload and guidance system) is an aero structure to support the propellant tanks which provide the fuel and oxidizer to feed the engine or engines. The basic principle behind a rocket engine is straightforward. The engine is a means to convert potential thermochemical energy of one or more propellants into exhaust jet kinetic energy. Fuel and oxidizer are burned in a combustion chamber where they create hot gases under high pressure. These hot gases are allowed to expand through a nozzle. The molecules of hot gas are first constricted by the throat of the nozzle (de-Laval nozzle) which forces them to accelerate; then as the nozzle flares outwards, they expand and further accelerate. It is the mass of the combustion gases times their velocity, reacting against the walls of the combustion chamber and nozzle, which produce thrust according to Newton’s third law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. [1] Solid rocket motors are cheaper to manufacture and offer good values for their cost. Liquid propellant engines offer higher performance, that is, they deliver greater thrust per unit weight of propellant burned. They also have a considerably higher thrust to weigh ratio. Since liquid rocket engines can be tested several times before flight, they have the capability to be more reliable, and their ability to shut down once started provides an extra margin of safety. Liquid propellant engines also can be designed with restart capability to provide orbital maneuvering capability. In some instances, liquid engines also can be designed to be reusable. On the solid side, hybrid solid motors also have been developed with the capability to stop and restart. Solid motors are covered in detail in chapter 11. Liquid rocket engine operational factors can be described in terms of extremes: temperatures ranging from that of liquid hydrogen (-423⁰F) to 6000⁰F hot gases; enormous thermal shock (7000ºF/sec); large temperature differentials between contiguous components; reactive propellants; extreme acoustic environments; high rotational speeds for turbo machinery and extreme power densities. These factors place great demands on materials selection and each must be dealt with while maintaining an engine of the lightest possible weight. 1 This chapter will describe the design considerations for the materials used in the various components of liquid rocket engines and provide examples of usage and experiences in each. 12.2 Liquid Rocket Engines Liquid rocket engines are either mono-propellant or bi-propellant. Mono-propellant engines either use a straight gaseous system or employ a catalyst to decompose the propellant in an exothermic reaction. An example was the reaction control system on the Mercury capsule in which each small thruster used hydrogen peroxide decomposed by a silver catalyst to provide attitude control for the vehicle. [2] Mono-propellant thrusters are usually used only for low thrust systems such as satellite propulsion systems. Bi-propellant systems use either hypergolic propellants or propellants that require a source of ignition. Hypergolic propellants usually are storable, that is, they are sufficiently stable to remain in their tanks for a considerable period of time under normal earth or space conditions. The most commonly used hypergolic propellants are nitric acid, nitrogen tetra oxide (NTO), hydrogen peroxide, mono-methyl hydrazine (MMH), and unsymmetric di-methyl hydrazine (UDMH). Non-hypergolic propellants that have been most commonly used are liquid oxygen, alcohol, kerosene, and liquid hydrogen. Liquid rocket engines differ greatly depending on mission, materials of construction, and launch vehicle design. The four broad categories into which liquid engines may be placed are: 1. first stage or core (booster) engines; 2. upper stage engines; 3. satellite propulsion engines; and 4. attitude control systems. Each of these categories has its own, unique requirements which significantly influence the engine design. In a liquid engine, the fuel and oxidizer propellants must be delivered to the combustion chamber at a pressure significantly greater than that in the combustion chamber. For relatively low thrust engines, (e.g., satellite propulsion or attitude control) this may be done by pressurizing the propellant storage tanks. For higher-thrust, high-performance engines, pumps must be used. To obtain the necessary power to drive high-performance pumps, a turbine drive is needed. To power the turbine, hot gases or high-pressure fluids are needed. There are many methods to provide the gases or fluids to drive the turbines. One of the most common methods is to provide hot gases by tapping off and combusting a small portion of propellants in a separate chamber called a gas generator. Another common method, the expander cycle, utilizes the energy of expanding fuel, heated by the combustion chamber and nozzle, to drive the turbines. Expander cycles require a low vapor pressure propellant, which limits them to propellants such as hydrogen or methane. Another cycle, the staged-combustion cycle, partially combusts almost all of the fuel with a portion of the oxidizer before entering the main combustion chamber where it is mixed with the remaining oxidizer to complete the combustion process. An alternative staged combustion cycle reverses the process by utilizing oxidizer rich pre-combustion with combustion completed by injecting the remaining fuel into the main combustion chamber. This version of staged combustion is favored by Russian designers. [2] Staged combustion is used when large power inputs are required to produce very high combustion chamber pressures (ex. 3000+ psi). No matter what the cycle, ducting is needed for the transfer of propellants to various engine components. To control the flow of propellants, one needs valves that are quick-acting and able to operate against very high pressure fluids. To actuate the valves, hydraulic, pneumatic, or electrical actuators are necessary. A method is needed to uniformly inject and mix the propellants in the combustion chamber to assure uniform, efficient, and stable combustion – this is called the “injector” of the combustion chamber. Unless hypergolic propellants are used, a method to initiate combustion is required - common methods to do this include: the use of a 2 pyrotechnic device; the injection of a hypergolic compound; or the use of spark ignition. A nozzle and sometimes a nozzle extension are needed to capture as much reactive thrust as practical. The combustion chamber and nozzle must be cooled to prevent them from melting from the heat of combustion. Cooling methods include regenerative, dump, film, transpiration, and ablative, or some combination of these. Commonly used for cooling is a double-walled design through which fuel (and sometimes oxidizer) is circulated to extract heat. For directional control of the vehicle, gimbaling of the engine or vanes in the exhaust stream may be used; either of these requires actuators. Sensors are required at key locations to monitor engine performance and make appropriate propellant flow changes or provide for rapid shut down if an anomaly is detected. To manage all this, a control system is needed which usually takes the form of an electronic computer. All of these elements must come together in an efficient, light-weight package which operates smoothly, efficiently, and reliably. The materials of construction are a key element to achieving the goals of performance, reliability, and relatively light weight. 12.2.1 Propellant Selection The choice of propellant combination for a liquid rocket stage is of fundamental importance, since it helps to determine the size, weight, performance characteristics and cost of the resulting vehicle. Liquid rocket propellants can be divided into two broad categories: storable propellants, which are in the liquid state at room temperature and pressure, and cryogens, which must be kept cold to prevent them from boiling. Storable propellants may be kept in the vehicle for extended periods before launch, and many storable propellant combinations are also hypergolic, which means they ignite on contact and do not require an ignition source. Cryogens, on the other hand, offer higher specific impulse (Isp) than storable propellants, and are often used for applications where performance is critical. [3] The selection of propellant combination is influenced by two important factors: the engine’s operating environment (booster or upper stage), and its thrust size. Upper stages have often used liquid hydrogen as a fuel, since the performance benefits of this cryogenic fuel frequently outweigh the difficulty and cost of maintaining it in the liquid state. The performance of upper stage engines is critical, since any loss in efficiency will require more propellants to lift a given payload, impacting the design of both the upper stage and the booster stage which must lift it. For small stages, however, performance has less of an impact on the overall vehicle, and many small engines have been designed to use storable propellants. Booster stages, for which performance is somewhat less critical, often have used RP-1, a refined form of kerosene, or storable fuels such as hydrazine. The denser fuel reduces the physical size of the stage, which is beneficial since the booster stage is the largest stage in the vehicle, and dictates the size of the handling and launch facilities. Stages using either kerosene or hydrogen fuel generally use liquid oxygen, which can be obtained and stored fairly easily, as the oxidizer, while those stages using storable fuels such as hydrazine typically use nitrogen tetra oxide (N2O4) oxidizer, creating a propellant combination that is both storable and hypergolic.