Pat Flannery wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:

This uses steam generated by water flowing around the combustion chamber
to drive the turbopump, then cools the steam back into water by running
it through a heat exchanger surrounded by Lox - this heats the Lox and
improves the engine's overall efficiency; there are drawings of it on
pages 9 and 10 of the PDF he http://www.astronautix.com/data/saenger.pdf
As well as a description of how it works afterwards.
Although heavy, it's an intriguing concept.


It would be fun to make work too...


Yeah, everything had better work just right or the Lox heat exchangers
blow up from too much Lox vaporization, or the steam coming from the
turbopump turns into ice inside the heat exchanger from over-cooling and
clogs it, at which point the combustion chamber melts. :-)

I was thinking more along the lines of the coolant going to steam in
the cooling passages (a Very Bad Thing). Or taking a slug of water
into the turbine (there doesn't seem to be a steam/water
seperator[1]).

Not to mention the startup/shutdown transients in such a system are
going to be... interesting. (On top of the thermal balance issues.)

D.

[1] And making one that will work both on the ground and under
acceleration will be decidely non-trivial.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL