UNIT 4 LIQUID AND HYBRID ROCKET

ENGINES
Liquid propellant rockets – selection of liquid
propellants – various feed systems for liquid rockets -
thrust control in liquid rockets – cooling in liquid rockets
and the associated heat transfer problems – advantages
of liquid rockets over solid rockets - introduction to
hybrid propulsion – advantages and limitations of hybrid
propulsion - static testing of rockets and safety
considerations.
 INTRODUCTION
• Liquid-propellant rocket engines in spite of inherent complexities are
preferred over the solid-propellant engines due to the added advantages of
liquid propellants.
• They have higher specific impulse and are capable of being throttled, shut
down, and restarted easily. Liquid propellants consist of liquid fuel and liquid
oxidizer and certain liquid additives.
• Several types of liquid propellants have been devised over the last six
decades.
• Liquid hydrocarbons, liquid hydrogen, alcohols, and so on are examples of
liquid propellants.
• Some of the examples of liquid oxidizers are liquid oxygen, nitric acid, and
liquid fluorine.
• Liquid propellants can be classified based on the fuel–oxidizer arrangement,
energy content, ignitability, and storability.
• Liquid propellants can be divided broadly into mono propellants and
bipropellants. In liquid monopropellants, both fuel and oxidizer elements are
located in the same molecular structure. Examples of monopropellants are
hydrogen peroxide (H2O2 ) and hydrazine (N2H4 ).
• The monopropellant can be decomposed in the presence of a suitable
catalyst into high-temperature and high-pressure gases.
• Monopropellants can be further divided into (1) simple and (2)
composite.
• In simple monopropellant, fuel and oxidizers are contained in the same
molecule. For example, methyl nitrate (CH3 NO3 ) can be decomposed
into CH3 O and NO2 .
• But the composite monopropellant consists of a mixture of oxidizer and
fuel. For example, nitric acid and amyl acetate can undergo exothermic
reactions to be used as composite monopropellant.
• In case of liquid bipropellant, fuel and oxidizer are mixed separately to
have exothermic reactions.
• Liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen are examples of liquid bipropellants.
• Based on the nature of ignitability, liquid propellants can be broadly
divided into two categories: (1) hypergolic and (2) nonhypergolic.
• In case of hypergolic propellant, fuel and oxidizer when brought in
contact will ignite spontaneously without any external ignition energy.
• Some hypergolic propellants are hydrogen–fluorine (H2 /F2 ), hydrazine–nitric
acid (N2 H4 /HNO3 ), unsymetrical dimethyl hydrazine–nitric acid (UDMH/HNO3
), and ammonia fluorine (NH3 /F2 ).
• Based on the energy contents, liquid propellants can be broadly classified into
three categories: (1) low-energy, (2) medium energy, and (3) high-energy
propellants.
• Although the energy content of a propellant is dependent on the heat of
combustion, in practice, this classification is based on the level of specific
impulse.
• In solid propellant rockets, the solid propellant grain was contained in the
rocket case and the burning at the exposed propellant surface generated a
flow of hot gases and hence, the thrust.
• Liquid propellants cannot be contained in a combustion chamber and burnt
like the solid propellants.
• The liquid oxidizer and liquid fuel need to be vaporised, the fuel vapour mixed
with the oxidizer vapour in proper proportion and then burnt.
• Accordingly, in a liquid propellant rocket, the liquid propellants are
metered at the desired flow rates, fragmented and vaporised in the
rocket chamber.
• The purpose of fragmenting the liquid, a process called ‘atomization’, is to
increase the surface area of the liquid and hence, enhance its evaporation.
• This is achieved, using injectors, which also meter the required quantities of
the liquid propellants and generate desired flow pattern in the rocket chamber
for mixing the vapours.
• Liquid propellant rockets comprise tanks containing liquid propellants and
suitable propellant feed systems for supplying propellants from the tanks to
the combustion chamber at the required flow rates and pressures.
• The metering of the flow and the atomization is done in an injector. The hot
products of combustion are generated in the combustion chamber and ejected
through a nozzle.
• The combination of the injector, combustion chamber and nozzle is known as
the ‘thrust chamber’.
 BASIC CONFIGURATION
• The main components of a typical liquid-propellant rocket engine,
shown in Figure, consist of thrust chamber, injector, igniter, combustion
chamber, nozzle, propellant tank, propellant feed system, and cooling
system.
• The combustion chamber along with nozzle is commonly known as the
thrust chamber.
• It houses injectors and igniter, which atomizes the liquid propellants,
mixes and ignites, leading to the combustion of liquid propellants.
• The main function of the combustion chamber is to produce high-
temperature and high-pressure gas due to burning of liquid propellants.
• Hence, it must have arrays of propellant injectors that can produce fine
spray such that both fuel and oxidizer can be vaporized and mixed well
for combustion to take place within a shorter zone of the combustion
chamber.
• In order to have better quality spray requisite average droplet size and
distribution, propellant must be fed into the injectors at high pressure.
Schematic of a Liquid Propellant Rocket
• For this purpose, the propellant feed system needs to be designed
and developed properly.
• Several propellant feed systems have been developed, which will be
discussed in subsequent sections.
• Of course, the propellant must be stored in high-pressure tank,
particularly in small rocket engine.
• However, turbo-pumps are used to feed high-pressure propellants
in larger LPRE.
• The function of ignition system is to provide certain initial ignition
energy for initiation of combustion.
• Of course, in certain liquid propellants known as hypergolic
propellants, there is no need to have an ignition system.
• As high temperature is required to produce high thrust, cooling
system is being used routinely to cool both combustion chamber
and nozzle.
• The high-pressure and high-temperature gas is expanded in
convergent–divergent nozzle to produce thrust.
TYPES OF LIQUID-PROPELLANT ROCKET ENGINES
• Several types of liquid-propellant rocket engine
have evolved from the time of its inception way
back in 1926.
• Based on single liquid or two liquids, it can be
broadly classified into two types: (1)
monopropellant rocket engine and (2)
bipropellant rocket engine
 Monopropellant Rocket Engines
• In case of monopropellant rocket engine, a single liquid propellant is used, in
which monopropellant gets decomposed with the help of a suitable catalyst
into hot gases that are expanded in the nozzle to produce requisite thrust.
• The great advantage of this system is the elimination of the oxidizer system
altogether, making it a very simple system.
• However, their applications are restricted to low-thrust and low-duration flight
conditions during each firing.
• A schematic of a typical monopropellant rocket engine is shown in Figure in
which liquid propellant is injected into a catalyst bed and decomposes into
high-pressure and high-temperature gas.
• These hot gases are expanded in the convergent–divergent nozzle to produce
requisite thrust.
• Generally, monopropellant is a slightly unstable chemical that decomposes
easily exothermally to produce hot gas.
• Some of the monopropellants used in rocket engines are hydrazine (N2 H4 ),
hydrogen peroxide (H2 O2 ), hydroxylammonium nitrate (HAN), and propylene
glycoldenitrate (PGDN).
• Among all the monopropellants, hydrazine (N2 H4) is considered to
have desirable properties as it has higher specific impulse and
lower density.
• Although it was quite cumbersome to ignite it, with the advent of a
better catalyst such as iridium pallet, it is possible to ignite it easily.
• In the presence of iridium catalyst, hydrazine can be decomposed
first into ammonia and nitrogen, as given in the following:

Schematic of monopropellant LPR engine.

• Note that this reaction is exothermic in nature. As a result, the
ammonia gets dissociated further into nitrogen and hydrogen, as
given in the following:

• As this reaction is endothermic in nature, the temperature of gases

decreases with increase in degree of ammonia dissociation.
• Interestingly, the molecular mass of product gases decreases with
increase in ammonia dissociation.
• Note that the extent of ammonia dissociation depends on the
residence time of hydrazine remaining contact with catalyst, size
and con figuration of catalyst bed.
• The used catalyst has ensured almost spontaneous restart capability
of the hydrazine monopropellant along with relative stability, clean
exhaust, and low flame temperature, which has made it the most
preferred among all other monopropellants.
Schematic of bipropellant LPR engine
Bipropellant Rocket Engines
• The bipropellant liquid rocket engines use one liquid propellant as fuel and another as an
oxidizer, as shown in Figure.
• This kind of rocket engine offers higher performance as compared to monopropellant
engines in terms of specific impulse and offers higher versatility in terms of restarting,
variable thrust, a wider range of operations, and so on.
• However, it has several disadvantages as it has higher failure modes, complexities, and
price tags as compared to monopropellant rocket engine.
• However, this kind of engine is used for launch vehicles, missiles, and other applications
extensively, due to its higher performance levels.
• As mentioned earlier, a typical pump-fed bipropellant liquid rocket engine, shown in
Figure, has thrust chamber, injection system, cooling system, propellant feed system,
nozzle, and so on.
• Generally, fuel and oxidizers as liquid propellants are fed through respective atomizers to
convert bulk liquid into spray, which mix with each other and subsequently get vaporized
and react with each other on ignition to produce high-temperature and high-pressure gas.
• The resultant gas is expanded through the convergent–divergent nozzle to produce thrust.
• Based on the nature of ignition, the bipropellant liquid rocket engines can be further
divided into two categories: (1) hypergolic and (2) nonhypergolic.
• In case of hypergolic propellant rocket engines, when liquid fuel and oxidizer come in
contact, they ignite without the aid of any external ignition energy, leading to combustion
while undergoing exothermic chemical reactions.
• As mentioned earlier, several fuels like aniline, triethylamine, hydrazine, MMDH,
and UDMH are hypergolic when they react with oxidizers like white fuming nitric
acid (4%–6% nitrogen tetroxide) and red fuming nitric acid (10%–14% nitrogen
tetroxide).
• Note that these propellants can be stored under normal pressure and
temperature without any special arrangements.
• However, hypergolic propellants like liquid fluorine–liquid hydrogen are to be
stored in cryogenic conditions.
• In case of nonhypergolic rocket engines, ignition energy must be supplied
externally to initiate combustion.
• Several fuels like kerosene, hydrocarbon, alcohol, and so on, can be used as
• nonhypergolic propellants.
• There is another class of most preferred nonhypergolic bipropellant rocket
engines, due to its higher specific impulse, in which liquid hydrogen and liquid
oxygen propellants are being used and for which cryogenic storage system is
required.
• Semicryogenic nonhypergolic systems, namely, liquid kerosene and liquid
oxygen, are being used for rocket engines. There is some unusual combination,
namely, ammonia and liquid oxygen nonhypergolic, being used in some rocket
engines like X-15 research aircraft.
 COMBUSTION OF LIQUID PROPELLANTS
• The processes involved during the combustion of liquid propellant in a rocket
engine are quite complex and have not been understood completely, because
the physical processes such as vaporization, diffusion of species, mixing, and
heat transfer take place along with heat release due to overall exothermic
chemical reactions during combustion.
• The liquid fuel, being injected into the combustion chamber at a high velocity
(20–100 m/s), gets converted into spray, as shown in Figure, during which
breaking of liquid stream into ligaments/lobes accompanied by secondary
atomization of ligaments into fine droplets also takes place.
• The vaporization of droplets occurs due to heat transfer from the combustion
zone and hot wall through all three heat transfer modes, namely, conduction,
convection, and radiation.
• Apart from liquid phase mixing, intimate gas phase mixing of fuel and oxidizer
does take place in a narrow zone of combustion chamber as shown in Figure.
• The gaseous or liquid or, both, gaseous and liquid propellants undergo
complex chemical reactions with several intermediate products, liberating large
amount of heat within a narrow zone of combustion chamber.
• Depending on the droplet size of the spray, several liquid droplets move with
gas across entire combustion zone even till the end of combustion chamber,
making the flow to be inherently two phased in nature.
Schematic representation of various processes in the
combustion chamber
• During the early stage of the two-phase flow, droplets moving at velocity of 50–
100 m/s can cause drag to gas flow, but subsequently accelerate the gas flow due
to both vaporization of droplets and heat release caused by burning of fuel.
• Besides this, turbulent diffusion of active species such as H, OH, and H2 makes
the flow more complex and difficult to handle analytically.
• The occurrence of recirculation zone and turbulent vortices of gas around the
injector augments the mixing and heat transfer, which helps vaporization and
combustion. All these processes occurs simultaneously.
• Besides this, it is difficult to decide which process has the greatest influence on
the combustion of propellants.
• The combustion in the liquid rocket engine is quite dynamic because the flame
front moves across the entire mass, which might be caused due to intense
turbulence level in the gases of the combustion chamber.
• The residence time of both fuel and oxidizer is quite small, that is, even less than
10 ms.
• The heat release rate per unit volume in typical rocket engine is 1000 MW/m3,
which is even 100 times compared to typical aero gas turbine combustor in
aircraft, because the higher rate of heat release during the combustion of
propellant takes place at high-pressure and high-temperature conditions
prevailing in rocket engine.
• The droplet size range for rocket engines is higher as compared to aero gas
turbine combustor.
• Hence, in the case of rocket engine, diameter and length of combustion
chamber is chosen judiciously such that most of the droplets are at least
vaporized in the combustion chamber itself.
• In contrast, complete combustion of droplets takes place within the initial portion
of combustion chamber length of aerogas turbine engine as later portion of
combustion chamber is used to ensure uniform temperature at its exit.
• Different phases take place in the combustion chamber for two types of liquid
propellants, namely, (1) hypergolic and (2) nonhypergolic.
• In case of hypergolic propellant combustion, injectors are designed such that
both fuel and oxidizer are mixed in the liquid phase itself as they can react
easily in the liquid phase to produce certain amount of heat while undergoing
exothermic chemical reactions.
• For example, certain hypergolic propellants like triethylamine (fuel) and nitric
acid (oxidizer) or xylidine and nitric acid can be mixed in liquid phase to form
stable solution even at low temperature and pressure.
• The heat liberated during liquid phase exothermic reactions is utilized to
vaporize the liquid fuel–oxidizer mixture and hot gases are produced quickly,
which helps in initiating chemical reactions in gaseous phase without any aid of
external ignition energy.
• Hence, actual combustion between both fuel and oxidizer will take place
leading to formation of burnt gas that mixes with other vapor.
• This intense mixing of fuel and oxidizer in gaseous phase can form
turbulent premixed flame/flamelets in the combustion chamber to produce
final combustion products.
• Apart from this, there is a chance that droplets are formed during the
atomization of both fuel and oxidizer propellant.
• These droplets can undergo combustion, either forming a single diffusion
flame around a single droplet or diffusion flame around a group/ cluster of
droplets. These processes involved during hypergolic combustion are
shown schematically in Figure.
• It can be observed that there is another path in which both fuel and
oxidizer droplets formed during atomization process can undergo
vaporization and mixing to form gaseous mixture that can lead to the
formation of premixed flame.
• There might be several other permutations and combinations of processes
that can occur during combustion of hypergolic propellants in a liquid-
propellant rocket engine.
Schematic of combustion processes in liquid-propellant
rocket engine combustor for (a) hypergolic.
• In case of nonhypergolic propellant, both fuel and oxidizer do not have
chemical affinity for each other in liquid phase. In other words, there would
not be any chemical reaction between fuel and oxidizer in liquid phase.
• Hence, exothermic reactions that occur during the gas phase reactions are
used to vaporize the liquid propellants such that they can be converted into
gaseous phase before being ignited for sustenance of combustion
process.
• That means, the combustion processes will be influenced by the heat
release rate and physical properties of liquid propellants.
• Although there might be liquid phase mixing as shown in Figure during
atomization process, but there would not be any chemical reactions in the
liquid phase.
• During this process, some of the liquid-propellant droplets can get
vaporized into gas phase.
• This vaporization process can be influenced by heat release from both
homogeneous and heterogeneous combustion processes, as some of the
liquid fuel droplets can be floated as single droplet or cluster of droplets or
cluster of group droplets.
• When vaporized fuel from a single or group of droplets comes in contact
with gaseous oxidizer, diffusion flame is formed while undergoing
heterogeneous combustion to produce combustion products.
Schematic of combustion processes in liquid-propellant rocket engine combustor for
(b) nonhypergolic
• Besides these, primary droplets may undergo secondary atomization, which
accelerates the vaporization processes, although with the help of heat transfer
from combustion zone by both convection and radiation heat transfer.
• The fuel, oxidizer, and combustion products in gaseous phase are mixed by
molecular diffusion and turbulent flow to form premixed mixture, which
undergoes chemical reactions to form premixed flame.
• The processes involved during combustion of nonhypergolic propellants are
shown schematically in Figure.
• It can be noted that these complex processes are tentative in nature, which need
to be developed with further research with the help of advanced optical
diagnostic and numerical tools in future.
• The processes described provide a qualitative picture of the complex phenomena
describing various stages during combustion of liquid propellants.
• It is quite difficult and cumbersome to determine the exact time required for
each process. In order to design combustion chamber length,
• we need to determine the time required for certain partial or complete
processes that ensure complete combustion. Let us then consider the change of
specific volume v, from the time of propellant entry to the formation of
combustion products in the form of hot gas.
Hypergolic Propellant Combustion
• For hypergolic propellant combustion, it can be assumed that exothermic chemical
reaction can be initiated as soon as both fuel and oxidizer propellants are injected from
a suitable injection system.
• As a result, specific volume starts increasing from the point of injection, as shown in
Figure.
• Subsequently, specific volume increases continuously till the end of complete burning
of propellants, as gaseous phase combustion continues both in the form of premixed
and diffusion flames that results in an increase in specific volume.
• It can be noted that it would not be possible to differentiate between liquid-phase and
gas-phase chemical reactions.
• However, if we can assume the first-order chemical reaction to be occurring during
liquid phase chemical reaction, then its time constant can be obtained easily, assuming
a theoretical profile for specific volume with time, as shown in Figure.
• The time for liquid-phase reaction tlc can be determined as the reciprocal of specific
reaction rate. This can be defined by the tangent to the exponential curve at time t = 0
as described in Figure.
• The time for the reactions to take place in the combustion chamber trg is equal to the
residence time of the gaseous flow of propellant.
• Hence, two characteristic times, namely, liquid-phase combustion time tlc and residence
time for gaseous phase combustion trg can be used for the determination of the length
Variation of specific volume with time for (a) hypergolic and
(b) nonhypergolic combustion
Nonhypergolic Propellant Combustion
• In this case, liquid-phase combustion does not take place.
• Hence, when propellant enters into the combustion chamber through injector, the
propellant does not burn immediately; rather, it takes certain interval of time
known as ignition time ti, during which fuel and oxidizer propellant are mixed and
vaporized.
• As a result, specific volume remains almost constant during this time, as shown in
Figure, and the specific volume starts increasing at B due to vaporization of liquid
propellant caused by atomization and heat transfer from the combustion zone.
• Of course, this increase in specific volume occurs at a slower rate till point C. The
time duration from the starting of propellant injection till point C is known as
ignition delay time ti.
• Subsequently, the specific volume gets accelerated beyond point C till point D as
the exothermic chemical reactions are initiated.
• The gas generated due to burning of propellant has to stay for certain time in the
combustion chamber to ensure complete combustion.
• Hence, the residence time duration from the initiation of combustion till its
completion, during which propellants and their combustion products will be in gas
phase, is termed trg.
• Hence, the total residence time tr is the sum of ignition delay time and residence
time in gas phase, as given in the following:
 COMBUSTION INSTABILITIES IN LPRE
• The combustion process in a liquid-propellant rocket engine occurs
inherently under unsteady conditions.
• Generally, certain level of unsteadiness occurred within pipe line can lead
to low-amplitude, random flow fluctuations to prevail during the operations
of liquid rocket engines without affecting its performance significantly.
• But in certain situations, liquid propellant rocket engine does encounter
certain violent unsteady combustion, resulting in irregular pressure
fluctuations of large amplitude in the combustion chamber and nozzle
flow.
• These fluctuations in pressure are in the acoustic or below acoustic
range, caused due to the positive feedback between the heat release rate
during the process of propellant combustion and flow field disturbance.
• Figure indicates a typical variation of chamber pressure with time of a
liquid rocket engine. A liquid rocket engine is considered to be operated
under stable condition, although there will be random fluctuations in
pressure, as shown in Figure, however, with lower limits around its mean
value.
• There might be some instances when a single large amplitude, as shown
in Figure, known as pressure spike occurs during its operation.
Chamber pressure variation time indicating
combustion instabilities in LPRE
• If this pressure fluctuation happens to interact with the natural frequency
of the feed system or the acoustic frequency of the combustion chamber,
it may lead to the formation of periodic pressure oscillations at certain
characteristic frequency.
• These oscillations may be amplified or maintained or dampened out by
the combustion process.
• These sustained oscillations during combustion process in the
combustion chamber are often termed as combustion instability.
• By carrying out the fast Fourier transform (FFT) analysis of pressure time
history, it can be found out during combustion instability phase that the
pressure fluctuations have several definite frequencies.
• In other words, the combustion instabilities have more natural acoustic
frequencies, which can cause several detrimental effects.
• Depending on the range of frequency, combustion instability can be
broadly classified into three kinds: (1) LFI, (2) IFI, and (3) HFI.
• When combustion instability occurs below 400 Hz, then it is termed as
low frequency instability (LFI). This is also known as chugging/ system
instability, which mainly results due to coupling between the combustion
and propellant feed system.
• Intermediate frequency instability (IFI) is likely to occur in the frequency range
of 400–1000 Hz, which is also known as buzzing/entropy wave.
• This frequency is believed to be caused due to pressure fluctuations in
injector and manifold caused by flow eddies, mechanical vibrations of engine,
and propellant feed system resonance.
• Beyond 1000 Hz, it is known as high frequency instability (HFI), which is
attributed to the coupling between the pressure oscillation and heat release
rate. This is often termed as screaming/screeching.
• Based on the predominant acoustic mode, combustion instabilities can be
classified into various types.
• Generally, three predominant modes, namely, longitudinal (axial), transverse,
and radial modes, and their combinations in different frequency ranges can
occur during the combustion processes in the liquid rocket engine.
• Sizable combustion oscillations, either periodic or random, are considered to
be detrimental for the overall performance and life of the liquid rocket
engine, because pressure oscillation of 10% about its mean value can cause a
thrust oscillation of 10%–100% of the mean thrust.
• Such oscillations can have a coupling with other portions of vehicle and can
develop abnormal stresses on engine components and thus spoil the normal
operation of other onboard systems.
• The form of self-excited combustion instability that is linked to the structure
of rocket engine is often termed as POGO, which occurs mainly in large
vehicles in the range of a few hertz to 1000 Hz, particularly close to burnout
time.
• That is why, pressure oscillations in liquid rocket engines greater than its
mean value by 5% is considered to be a serious concern to the designer,
which must be avoided at any cost.
• Low-frequency combustion instability is not deadly but need to be attended
to as it affects the performance of the rocket engine and is accompanied with
chugging sound. The combustion efficiency decreases by as much as 20% due
to the occurrence of low-frequency instability (LFI).
• This is mainly caused by the phase difference between feed system response
and combustion chamber pressure oscillation.
• Hence, it can be controlled by isolating the pressure oscillation in the
combustion chamber such that it cannot be sensed by the feed system. One
way of accomplishing this is to increase the pressure drop across the injector.
• The frequency and the amplitude of this low-frequency instabilities are
dependent on the characteristic length L*, the chamber pressure Pc, and the
pressure difference across injector ΔPi.