An Overview of Bearing Candidates for the Next Generation of Reusable Liquid Rocket Turbopumps

There is a consensus in the aerospace field that the development of reusable liquid rockets can effectively reduce the launch expense.The pursuit of a long service life and reutilization highly depends on the bearing components.However,the rolling element bearings(REBs)used in the existing rocket turbopumps present obvious and increasing limitations due to their mechanical contacting mode.For REBs,high rotational speed and long service life are two performance indexes that mutually restrict each other.To go beyond the DN value(the product of the bearing bore and rotational speed)limit of REBs,the major space powers have conducted substantial explorations on the use of new types of bearings to replace the REB.This review discusses,first,the crucial role of bearings in rocket turbopumps and the related structural improvements of REBs.Then,with the prospect of application to the next generation of reusable liquid rocket turbopumps,the bearing candidates investigated by major space powers are summarized comprehensively.These promising alternatives to REBs include fluid-film,foil,and magnetic bearings,together with the novel superconducting compound bearings recently proposed by our team.Our more than ten years of relevant research on fluid-film and magnetic bearings are also introduced.This review is meaningful for the development of long-life and highly reliable bearings to be used in future reusable rocket turbopumps.

空化诱导轮内流动不稳定性的最大似然估

The article illustrates the application of Bayesian estimation to the identification of flow instabilities,with special reference to rotating cavitation,in a three-bladed axial inducer using the unsteady pressure readings of a single transducer mounted on the casing just behind the leading edges of the impeller blades.The typical trapezoidal pressure distribution in the blade channels is parametrized and modulated in time and space for theoretically reproducing the expected pressure generated by known forms of cavitation instabilities(cavitation auto-oscillations and higher-order surge cavitation modes,n-lobed subsynchronous/synchronous/super-synchronous rotating cavitation).The Fourier spectra of the theoretical pressure so obtained in the rotating frame are transformed in the stationary frame,frequency broadened to better approximate the experimental results,and parametrically fitted by maximum likelihood estimation to the measured auto-correlation spectra.Each form of instability generates a characteristic distribution of sidebands in addition to its fundamental frequency.The identification makes use of this information for effective detection and characterization of multiple simultaneous flow instabilities with intensities spanning over about 20 db down to about 4 db signal-to-noise ratios.The same information also allows for effectively bypassing the aliasing limitations of traditional cross-correlation methods in the discrimination of multiple-lobed azimuthal instabilities from the measurements returned by arrays of equally spaced sensors.The method returns both the estimates of the model parameters and their standard deviations,providing the information needed for the assessment of the statistical significance of the results.The proposed approach represents therefore a promising tool for experimental research on flow instabilities in high-performance turbopumps.

Turbopump Condition Monitoring Using Incremental Clustering and One-class Support Vector Machine

Turbopump condition monitoring is a significant approach to ensure the safety of liquid rocket engine （LRE）.Because of lack of fault samples,a monitoring system cannot be trained on all possible condition patterns.Thus it is important to differentiate abnormal or unknown patterns from normal pattern with novelty detection methods.One-class support vector machine （OCSVM） that has been commonly used for novelty detection cannot deal well with large scale samples.In order to model the normal pattern of the turbopump with OCSVM and so as to monitor the condition of the turbopump,a monitoring method that integrates OCSVM with incremental clustering is presented.In this method,the incremental clustering is used for sample reduction by extracting representative vectors from a large training set.The representative vectors are supposed to distribute uniformly in the object region and fulfill the region.And training OCSVM on these representative vectors yields a novelty detector.By applying this method to the analysis of the turbopump＇s historical test data,it shows that the incremental clustering algorithm can extract 91 representative points from more than 36 000 training vectors,and the OCSVM detector trained on these 91 representative points can recognize spikes in vibration signals caused by different abnormal events such as vane shedding,rub-impact and sensor faults.This monitoring method does not need fault samples during training as classical recognition methods.The method resolves the learning problem of large samples and is an alternative method for condition monitoring of the LRE turbopump.

An Experiment on Cavitating Flow in Rocket Engine Inducer

An experiment for rocket engine inducer cavitating flow is conducted on a new experimental platform.The experiment platform,using water as working medium,can be used to investigate the steady and unsteady flows of cavitating and noncavitating turbopumps.The experimental platform is designed as a flexible and versatile apparatus for any kind of fluid dynamic phenomena relating to high performance liquid rocket engine turbopumps.Design details for the platform is introduced.Various extend of cavitation images and dynamic pressure impulse are obtained,which provides a reference for cavitating flow study in rocket engine inducer.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN AEROSPACE PROPULSION MATERIALS

This paper describes the key role played by superalloys in aerospace propulsion. Turbopump blades in liquid rocket engines operating under severe thermal and environmental conditions require the development of specific materials.A new superalloy,THYMONEL 8, developed by ONERA in collaboration with SEP is shown to possess a set of properties required for advanced rocket engines. For future civil aircraft engines, the development of compressor and turbine disk materials operating at still higher temperatures requires a greater contrul of the grain size,which has to be increased for improved creep resistance and higher damage tolerance. Work carried out at ONERA emphasizes the importance of high temperature deformation conditions, especially the strain rate, for obtaining a uniform grain growth.

Entropy production by dissipation effects and characteristic vortex evolution in a rocket turbopump

The relationship between entropy production and vortex evolution affects the efficiency and stability of rotating machinery.This study investigated the energy characteristics of a rocket turbopump and revealed the correlated mechanisms of the entropy production rate using the dissipation effects and characteristic vortex evolution.For the first time,direct and turbulent dissipation and rigid and shear vorticity decomposition methods were utilized to analyze the correlation between flow loss and characteristic vorticities in rotating machinery.With an increase in the flow rate,the hydraulic losses of the dissipation effects and wall decreased by 60%and 38.3%,respectively,and the proportions of the input energy decreased(from 13%to 8%)and remained stable(8%),respectively.The local direct dissipative entropy production(DDEP)in the inducer-impeller is strongly related to shear entropy,and the correlated effect of total enstrophy on DDEP is weaker than that of shear vorticity,indicating that rigid enstrophy suppresses direct dissipation.The correlation between turbulent dissipation and rigid enstrophy was significantly weaker in the static flow passage of the turbopump owing to the weak rigid rotational effect.The correlation between the rigid entropy and local turbulent dissipative entropy production(TDEP)gradually increased with increasing flow rate,reaching a medium correlation(the maximal correlated degree in the turbopump)and exhibiting rigid rotation effects on the hydraulic loss.Moreover,the flow rate significantly affected the correlation(except for the diffuser),and the two characteristic vorticities reached a maximum at the designed flow rate owing to optimal efficiency and minimum hydraulic loss.

A review of cavitation in hydraulic machinery

This paper mainly summarizes the recent progresses for the cavitation study in the hydraulic machinery including turbo- pumps, hydro turbines, etc.. Especially, the newly developed numerical methods for simulating cavitating turbulent flows and the achievements with regard to the complicated flow features revealed by using advanced optical techniques as well as cavitation simulation are introduced so as to make a better understanding of the cavitating flow mechanism for hydraulic machinery. Since cavitation instabilities are also vital issue and rather harmful for the operation safety of hydro machines, we present the 1-D analysis method, which is identified to be very useful for engineering applications regarding the cavitating flows in inducers, turbine draft tubes, etc. Though both cavitation and hydraulic machinery are extensively discussed in literatures, one should be aware that a few problems still remains and are open for solution, such as the comprehensive understanding of cavitating turbulent flows especially inside hydro turbines, the unneglectable discrepancies between the numerical and experimental data, etc.. To further promote the study of cavitation in hydraulic machinery, some advanced tooics such as a Density-Based solver suitable for highly comoressible cavitating turbulent flows, a virtual cavitation tunnel, etc. are addressed for the future works.

Friction and wear behavior of different seal materials under water-lubricated conditions

The shaft mechanical face seal in a high-speed turbopump of a liquid rocket engine often operates under extremely harsh conditions.For example,a low-temperature and low-viscosity fluid(such as liquid oxygen or liquid hydrogen)is used as a lubricant.The performance of the seal rings,especially the friction and wear behavior,directly determines whether the seal functions normal.In this study,the friction and wear behavior of several ring materials are tested using a pin-on-disk tribo-tester,and the wear morphology of the ring is investigated.The friction coefficients(COFs)and mass-wear rates under dry-friction and water-lubricated conditions,which are used to simulate low-viscosity conditions,are obtained.The results show that at a pressure-velocity(PV)value of 2.4 MPa-(m/s),the COF between the copper graphite(stator)and copper-chrome alloy disk(rotor)is low(with a value of 0.18)under the dry-friction conditions,and the 5-min wear mass of the copper graphite is approximately 2 mg.Under the water-lubricated conditions,compared with other materials(such as copper-chrome alloy,S07 steel,alumina ceramic coating,and nickel-based calcium fluoride),the S07 steel with a diamond-like carbon film is preferred for use in a high-speed turbopump under extreme conditions.The results of this study can provide theoretical and experimental guidance in the design of mechanical face seals in liquid rocket engines.