RS-25 Engines: Meeting the Need for Speed
Hello
reader!
Below is an article
published today (08/18), on the
site www.spacedaily.com, noting that the RS-25 engines
make a modern race car engine or jet look like a
windup toy.
Duda
Falcão
ROCKET
SCIENCE
RS-25 Engines:
Meeting the Need for Speed
By Staff
Writers
Houston TX (SPX) Aug 18, 2015
And
this is still only the major components of an RS-25 engine.
For a larger
version of this image please go here.
|
Rocket
engines are among the most amazing machines ever invented. That's mainly
because they have to do one of the most extreme jobs ever conceived -
spaceflight - starting with escaping Earth's deep gravity well. Orbital
velocity, just for starters, is over 17,000 mph, and that only gets you a
couple hundred miles off the surface. Going farther requires going faster. Much
faster.
The
RS-25 makes a modern race car or jet engine look like a wind-up toy. It has to
handle temperatures as low as minus 400 degrees where the propellants enter the
engine and as high as 6,000 degrees as the exhaust exits the combustion chamber
where the propellants are burned.
It has
to move a lot of propellants to generate a lot of energy. At the rate the four
SLS core stage engines consume propellants, they could drain a family swimming
pool in 1 minute.
The most
complex part of the engine is its four turbopumps which are responsible for
accelerating fuel and oxidizer to those insanely high flow rates. The high
pressure fuel turbopump main shaft rotates at 37,000 rpms compared to about
3,000 rpm for a car engine at 60 mph.
The
bottom line is that the RS-25 produces 512,000 pounds of thrust. That's more
than 12 million horsepower. That's enough to push 10 giant aircraft carriers
around the ocean at nearly 25 mph.
If the
performance requirement to turn massive amounts of fuel into massive amounts of
fire wasn't enough, an engine can't take up a lot of mass or area in a rocket.
A car engine generates about half a single horsepower to each pound of engine
weight. The RS-25 high pressure fuel turbopump generates 100 horsepower for
each pound of its weight.
But
forget mere car engines. The RS-25 is about the same weight and size as two
F-15 jet fighter engines, yet it produces 8 times more thrust. A single turbine
blade the size of a quarter - and the exact number and configuration inside the
pump is now considered sensitive - produces more equivalent horsepower than a
Corvette ZR1 engine.
On the
other hand, when you chug fluids that fast, a hiccup is a bad thing. In the
case of a rocket engine, that hiccup is called cavitation. At the least, it
robs the engine of power. At worst, it can cause catastrophic overheating and
overspeeding. So rocket engineers spend a lot of time making sure fluids flow
straight and smooth.
That's
also why they test rocket engines on the ground under highly instrumented and
controlled conditions. It's a lot less costly to fail on the ground than in
flight with a full rocket carrying people on board and/or a one-of-a-kind
multi-million- or multi-billion-dollar payload.
As
rocket engines go, the RS-25 may be the most advanced, operating at higher
temperatures, pressures, and speeds than most any other engine. The advantage
comes down to being able to launch more useful payload into space with less
devoted to the rocket structure and its propellants.
In
addition to its power, another key consideration for SLS was the availability
of 16 flight engines and two ground test engines from the shuttle program. It's
much harder and more expensive to develop a new engine from scratch. Using a
high-performance engine that already existed gave NASA a considerable boost in
developing its next rocket for space exploration.
The
remaining shuttle engine inventory will be enough for the first four SLS
flights. As for the maturity part, the RS-25 design dates to the 1970s and the
start of the Space Shuttle Program. But it's undergone five major upgrades
since then to improve performance, reliability, and safety.
If only
we could all upgrade 5 times as we age. Further, much of the knowledge and
infrastructure needed to use the available engines and restart production
already existed. Another hidden savings in time and money.
In its
next evolution, the RS-25 design will be changed to make it a more affordable
engine designed for just one flight and certify it to even higher thrust -
which it is very capable of - to make SLS an even more impressive launch
vehicle.
Fonte: Site http://www.spacedaily.com
Comentário: Creio que este interessante artigo seja do
interesse dos grupos brasileiros que trabalham na área de motores-foguetes.
Motores de foguete são máquinas fantásticas! Alcançar 6000 graus celsius de forma controlável é muito impressionante, o mais engraçado é que o motor é perdido depois.
ResponderExcluirFatos curiosos, que no entanto, nos ajudam a compreender; quão fantástico são os motores-foguetes ( No exemplo o RS-25 ).
ResponderExcluir1- Consome 1 piscina padrão, de propelentes por minuto.
2-Poderia impulsionar 10 gigantescos porta-aviões.
3-Produz 8 vezes o empuxo de 2 caças F-15.
4-A turbo-bomba produz 37.000 rpm, comparado com 3.000 rpm de um carro comum.
Ageu Alves
É um motor fantástico mas ainda prefiro o saudoso F-1 do Saturn V.
ResponderExcluirMiraglia
Olá, sem duvidas o F-1 é o mais impressionante motor já construído, recentemente fizeram um teste com gerador de gás dos motor, apenas um componente dele, já é algo surreal, o que me deixa admirado é os videos de teste do F-1, da década de 60, acho que vai demorar muito para podemos ver um motor deste porte voando novamente.
ExcluirAbraços.
Eu acho que o motor do foguete SLS poderá ser equivalente ao F-1, mas na minha opinião o motor mais impressionante foi usado no foguete Energia da União Soviética que podia lançar 100 toneladas.
ExcluirAproposito, a Russia tem planos de continuar em fazer esse foguete e imaginem eles lançando em território brasileiro se algum acordo deste tipo for concretizado.
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Russia_starts_ambitious_super_heavy_space_rocket_project_999.html
Everton
Olá Everton!
ExcluirO motor do Energia era o RD-170, era mais potente que o F-1, ele tinha um turbocompressor, que alimentava quatro câmaras de combustão, já F-1 usava apenas uma bomba e uma câmara de combustão combustível.
Energia tinha a capacidade de 100 t, mas o RD-170 não fazia o trabalho sozinho, quatro booster "Zenit", tirava o foguete no chão.
Saturno V tinha a capacidade de 140 t , porém usando cinco F-1, mas sem duvidas que são dois sistemas incríveis, que demostra a genialidade dessa época.
Abraços