In order to mitigate the risk of rocket propulsion development, efficient, accurate, detailed fluid dynamics analysis and testing of the turbomachinery is necessary. To support this requirement, a task was developed at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) to improve turbine aerodynamic performance through the application of advanced design and analysis tools. These tools were applied to optimize a supersonic turbine design suitable for a reusable launch vehicle (RLV). The hot gas path and blading were redesigned-to obtain an increased efficiency. The goal of the demonstration was to increase the total-to- static efficiency, (n) of the turbine by eight points over the baseline design. A sub-scale, cold flow test article modeling the final optimized turbine was designed, manufactured, and tested in air at MSFC's Turbine Airflow Facility. Extensive on- and off- design point performance data, steady-state data, and unsteady blade loading data were collected during testing. The predicted (n) of the optimized design was 10.5 points higher than the baseline. Experimental results show that the goals of the TPO program have been met, by providing a detailed supersonic turbine dataset suitable for analytical code validation and showing a measured (n), increase of 9 points over the baseline efficiency at design conditions.
Experimental Performance Evaluation of a Supersonic Turbine for Rocket Engine Applications
2003
16 pages
Report
Keine Angabe
Englisch