Integrated Component and System Analyses of Instabilities in Test Stands

Instabilities associated with the operation of liquid rocket propulsion systems and test facilities usually manifest themselves as structural vibrations and may cause structural damage. While the source of the instability is directly related to the performance of a component such as a turbopump, the associated pressure fluctuations as they propagate through the system have the potential to amplify and resonate with natural modes of the system. In this proposal, a novel multi-level (system and component) instability analysis tool is proposed to identify these resonant modes. In Phase I of this program, a Transfer Matrix based approach was developed to analyze the propagation of an instability through a limited range of components such as ducts, bends, orifices and diffusers. The initiation of an instability was resolved with the help of high-fidelity CFD simulations. Demonstration of the tool was successfully carried out for the propagation of an instability in a scaled down system. In Phase II, the tool will be expanded to include a wider array of components such as turbopumps, valve systems etc. This will permit analysis of a greater range of instabilities from multi-phase instabilities involving cavitation based events in turbopumps to valve based instabilities such as water hammer.

The commercial market for our product is very large and includes plants and industrial facilities such as nuclear power generation, chemical process plants etc. Recently, commercial space ventures ranging from space transportation systems (COTS) for the international space station (ISS), to low-cost satellite launch systems are getting interested in simulation tools capable of providing risk assessment of propulsion systems. The primary market for this product will be in the design and analysis of high-performance, high-reliability systems used for inherently transient operations in the nuclear and chemical process industry. Here characterizing the transient performance of the system is a critical safety issue and the availability of a well-validated, reliable predictive software tool can play an integral role in reducing costs and managing risk.

The integrated multi-level (system and component) simulation software resulting from this proposal would predict performance of liquid rocket propulsion systems and test facilities for rocket engines. The salient features of the framework include diagnosis of system anomalies/transients and prediction of system feedback and response to the transients. Our product addresses core needs of NASA in the Constellation program, and the mission to the moon, in reliably predicting instability modes, resonance and structural vibrations in propulsion systems such as the J-2X and RS-68 engines as well as test facilities with complex networks of valves, venturis, control elements etc. The software technology developed here can also be deployed by engine health monitoring systems and/or by control algorithms that require rapid response models of systems that consist of vast array of fluid dynamic components.

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