New design method cuts rocket engine development time and costs
Researchers have developed an automated optimization technique that streamlines the design of pintle injectors—critical components in reusable rocket engines. The method reduces the number of manual iterations needed, potentially accelerating time-to-market for space companies seeking to compete in the growing commercial launch sector.
Originaltitel: A Numerical Approach to Optimize the Design of a Pintle Injector for LOX/GCH4 Liquid-Propellant Rocket Engine
<p>This study presents an optimal design approach of a pintle injector for a deep throttlable liquid-propellant rocket engine (LPRE). Even though the pintle injector is used in rocket engines, it has become more important since reusable launch vehicles (RLVs) recently became a trend due to their economic and environmental benefits. However, since many variables must be determined to design a pintle injector, optimizing the pintle injector design is complicated. For this, we design a pintle injector to optimize the performance parameters; the spray angle, vaporization distance, and Sauter mean diameter (SMD). To confirm the approach, we design a pintle injector using an optimization method based on convex quadratic programming (CQP) for a 1000 N thrust and a throttle ability of 5 to 1 LPRE with liquid oxygen and gaseous methane. Then, we verify the performance using a numerical simulation. Through this work, we check the effectiveness of the optimization method for a pintle injector design.</p>