Design and Simulation of a Regeneratively Cooled Rocket Engine and Analysis of the Rocketdyne LR101

Abstract

The Rocketdyne LR101 regeneratively cooled rocket engine (RCRE) has been around for many decades, it operates by recycling energy and optimizing the performance of the rocket engine for its given dimensional constraint. An S-Titanium Pro 3D metal printer manufactured in Australia was used to produce a comparable version of the Rocketdyne LR101 RCRE at a fraction of the current traditional manufacturing cost. The traditional manufacturing method involves spinning, welding, machining, and a lot of assembly hours. The printer available for the thesis research was limited to a printing volume of 200 by 200 by 250 cubic millimeters, the LR101 was around 350 millimeters tall. To produce a comparable 3D metal printed version, the Rocketdyne LR101 had to be scaled down and reproduced in line with additive manufacturing constraints. This involved using multiple software programs to simulate the performance of the designed engine dubbed Long Beach State University Regen Engine. The designed engine assumed to work from tank pressurized LOX and RP-1, produced a specific impulse of 237.95 seconds and a thrust force of 735 pounds. The engine was designed for an Oxygen-to-Fuel ratio of 2.33 and was weighed roughly 6.16 pounds. Due to the small size of the engine and low resolution of the available printer, the engine did not include ports for pressure transducers or any other sensors; sensors were mounted at the interfaces. Changes to the engine were made after an initial print was made and tested. The adaptation of additive manufacturing technology in the development of a regeneratively cooled rocket engine with the aid of design of experiments and simulation techniques lowered the cost and lead time of traditional manufactured counterparts.