DDE Posted April 27, 2019 Share Posted April 27, 2019 (edited) On 4/9/2019 at 7:22 PM, MaverickSawyer said: You do remember that the RL-10 as it flies today is hands-down one of the most manual labor intensive engines made? I mean, it's brazed tube construction for the chamber and nozzle. Parts may be cheap, but the skilled labor to actually do the construction isn't. I'm not entirely sure you can do a furnace braze on that or not. I'll have to ask a contact of mine with some experience in such matters... *brandishes Sutton* Quote P&W used formed, double tapered, and flattened 347 stainless-steel tubes for the cooling jacket of the thrust chamber and the nozzle. It is basically similar to the tubular TC concepts developed years earlier by RMI, Aerojet, or Rocketdyne. P&W used the same subcontractor (LeFiel) who already had experience with double tapered tubes. Type 347 stainless steel was the tube material, which has good elongation properties, can be brazed, and is rust resistant. Silver was the brazing material. Brazing was done for 20 h in a special furnace with a reducing atmosphere (to prevent oxide contamination). The tubes and external rings were assembled and held in the furnace by a special rotary fix-ture. Because the TC axis was horizontal in the furnace, the TC was rotated slowly to prevent distortion and achieve an even distribution of the brazing material. Edited April 27, 2019 by DDE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racescort666 Posted April 29, 2019 Share Posted April 29, 2019 On 4/27/2019 at 8:59 AM, DDE said: *brandishes Sutton* Sounds like they're the only game in town too: http://www.lefiell.com/2rocket_engine.html You would think that with having the market cornered and being able to dictate the price of the heinously expensive tubes, they'd be able to afford a better website. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Rocket Scientist Posted April 30, 2019 Share Posted April 30, 2019 9 hours ago, Racescort666 said: Sounds like they're the only game in town too: http://www.lefiell.com/2rocket_engine.html You would think that with having the market cornered and being able to dictate the price of the heinously expensive tubes, they'd be able to afford a better website. Are you kidding? This is the peak of web design. Nothing will ever top this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DDE Posted April 30, 2019 Share Posted April 30, 2019 11 hours ago, Racescort666 said: Sounds like they're the only game in town too No, apparently they have to compete with golf club companies, because that’s where Rocketdyne originally went to get their tubes bent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insert_name Posted April 30, 2019 Share Posted April 30, 2019 12 hours ago, Racescort666 said: Sounds like they're the only game in town too: http://www.lefiell.com/2rocket_engine.html You would think that with having the market cornered and being able to dictate the price of the heinously expensive tubes, they'd be able to afford a better website. does every major liquid rocket engine include merlin, because I thought that was all manufactured in house? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaverickSawyer Posted April 30, 2019 Share Posted April 30, 2019 26 minutes ago, insert_name said: does every major liquid rocket engine include merlin, because I thought that was all manufactured in house? Merlin doesn't use brazed-tube construction, so it's not applicable anyways. BE-4 also will not be using brazed tube. However, for a long time, that has been the go-to method for any regeneratively cooled engine built in the US. H-1, F-1, J-2, RL-10, LR87/91, RS-25... All the big ones. Smaller stuff like the AJ-10 family, which includes the SPS engine from Apollo and the OMS engines off the shuttle, notably did not use brazed tube, or did so only for small sections, with the OMS using electroforming to close out machined channels in the chamber. Not sure if the Agena engine used brazed tube. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DDE Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 (edited) On 4/30/2019 at 8:32 AM, MaverickSawyer said: Merlin doesn't use brazed-tube construction, so it's not applicable anyways. BE-4 also will not be using brazed tube. However, for a long time, that has been the go-to method for any regeneratively cooled engine built in the US. H-1, F-1, J-2, RL-10, LR87/91, RS-25... All the big ones. Smaller stuff like the AJ-10 family, which includes the SPS engine from Apollo and the OMS engines off the shuttle, notably did not use brazed tube, or did so only for small sections, with the OMS using electroforming to close out machined channels in the chamber. Not sure if the Agena engine used brazed tube. Quote Figure 7.11-7 shows the Agena engine, and a flow diagram is shown in Fig. 7.11-8. It has a unique aluminum (6061 T6) thrust chamber (oxidizer cooled) with a relatively thick wall, which contains long drilled holes (inclined to the axis) as cooling passages. Straight holes can be drilled into a double curved nozzle-throat section of the cooling jacket as can be seen in Fig. 7.11-9. Some versions had a five-compartment injector baffle to prevent the occurrence of unstable combustion. The radiation-cooled nozzle-exit section (between area ratio of 12 and 45) is made of titanium reinforced externally with molybdenum stringers and hoops, which can be seen as an egg-crate pattern in Fig. 7.11-7. As to RS-25, an image I remember made me look up, and Quote For this reason a copper-alloy inner wall, and a milled channel design is used in the cooling jacket at the chamber and nozzle-throat region. This milling operation is seen in Fig.4.3-6. The copper alloy was developed by Rocketdyne to obtain higher strength at elevated temperatures, yet retain some of the good conductivity of copper. Edited May 9, 2019 by DDE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racescort666 Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 2 hours ago, DDE said: As to RS-25, an image I remember made me look up, and Were there supposed to be pictures with this? Those descriptions make me want to see what they're describing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DDE Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 3 hours ago, Racescort666 said: Were there supposed to be pictures with this? Those descriptions make me want to see what they're describing. Screenshot of a poorly-scanned PDF, so pardon me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaverickSawyer Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 Okay, so RS-25 used a milled and closed-out solid thrust chamber, with the nozzle extension being brazed or welded tube. Huh. Kind of an intermediate step between the older and newer technologies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DDE Posted May 13, 2019 Share Posted May 13, 2019 (edited) On 5/9/2019 at 7:35 PM, MaverickSawyer said: Okay, so RS-25 used a milled and closed-out solid thrust chamber, with the nozzle extension being brazed or welded tube. Huh. Kind of an intermediate step between the older and newer technologies. Milled channels aren’t a newer technology, but more of an augmentation. RD-170 similarly uses a milled throat but classic vacuum-brazed corrugated bronze sheets with steel outer wall for everything else. Edited May 13, 2019 by DDE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racescort666 Posted May 13, 2019 Share Posted May 13, 2019 (edited) Looks like ULA is moving another step closer to engine reuse when they accepted an inflatable heat shield test contract in-flight over Kerbin Earth: https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/05/13/nasa-ula-find-launch-opportunity-for-inflatable-heat-shield-demonstrator/ Seriously though, this sounds like the most Kerbal plan ever since they're planning on catching the thing mid-air with a helicopter. I love it. Figured I'd add their graphic for smart reuse because it's very similar. Edited May 14, 2019 by Racescort666 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZooNamedGames Posted May 14, 2019 Share Posted May 14, 2019 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimate Steve Posted May 14, 2019 Share Posted May 14, 2019 Hypercone, now there's a cool sounding name. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 20, 2019 Author Share Posted May 20, 2019 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brotoro Posted May 20, 2019 Share Posted May 20, 2019 I'm looking forward to watching them snag the engines out of the air. Not as cool as landing boosters on rocket flames, but it should be entertaining. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 23, 2019 Author Share Posted May 23, 2019 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZooNamedGames Posted May 25, 2019 Share Posted May 25, 2019 https://spacenews.com/boeing-completes-tests-of-starliner-thrusters/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DDE Posted May 29, 2019 Share Posted May 29, 2019 On 5/13/2019 at 11:42 PM, Racescort666 said: Seriously though, this sounds like the most Kerbal plan ever since they're planning on catching the thing mid-air with a helicopter. I love it. Where have we seen that before? [REDACTED] And that wasn’t even the crazy one. http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1045/1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZooNamedGames Posted May 29, 2019 Share Posted May 29, 2019 The original video of a Saturn booster being air dropped and gliding into a field appears to have been sadly deleted, so I'll have to make do with this as a replacement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racescort666 Posted June 6, 2019 Share Posted June 6, 2019 I love the Ford L9000 that ULA uses to move their rockets around. That thing is nothing but style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 23, 2019 Author Share Posted June 23, 2019 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scotius Posted June 23, 2019 Share Posted June 23, 2019 Did they forgot to install batteries? It's OK - it happened to many of us Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrandedonEarth Posted June 23, 2019 Share Posted June 23, 2019 (edited) 56 minutes ago, Scotius said: Did they forgot to install batteries? It's OK - it happened to many of us One got installed backwards.... Edited June 23, 2019 by StrandedonEarth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted June 23, 2019 Author Share Posted June 23, 2019 Revert to VAB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.