Thermal hydraulic design analysis of ternary carbide fueled square-lattice honeycomb nuclear rocket engine
- Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611 (United States)
A computational analysis is conducted to determine the optimum thermal-hydraulic design parameters for a square-lattice honeycomb nuclear rocket engine core that will incorporate ternary carbide based uranium fuels. Recent studies at the Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute (INSPI) have demonstrated the feasibility of processing solid solution, ternary carbide fuels such as (U, Zr, Nb)C, (U, Zr, Ta)C, (U, Zr, Hf)C and (U, Zr, W)C. The square-lattice honeycomb design provides high strength and is amenable to the processing complexities of these ultrahigh temperature fuels. A parametric analysis is conducted to examine how core geometry, fuel thickness and the propellant flow area effect the thermal performance of the nuclear rocket engine. The principal variables include core size (length and diameter) and fuel element dimensions. The optimum core configuration requires a balance between high specific impulse and thrust level performance, and maintaining the temperature and strength limits of the fuel. A nuclear rocket engine simulation code is developed and used to examine the system performance as well as the performance of the main reactor core components. The system simulation code was originally developed for analysis of NERVA-Derivative and Pratt and Whitney XNR-2000 nuclear thermal rockets. The code is modified and adopted to the square-lattice geometry of the new fuel design. Thrust levels ranging from 44,500 to 222,400 N (10,000 to 50,000 lbf) are considered. The average hydrogen exit temperature is kept at 2800 K, which is well below the melting point of these fuels. For a nozzle area ratio of 300 and a thrust chamber pressure of 4.8 Mpa (700 psi), the specific impulse is 930 s. Hydrogen temperature and pressure distributions in the core and the fuel maximum temperatures are calculated.
- OSTI ID:
- 21202510
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 458, Issue 1; Conference: Space technology and applications international forum - 1999, Albuquerque, NM (United States), 31 Jan - 4 Feb 1999; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.57548; (c) 1999 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
HAFNIUM CARBIDES
MIXED CARBIDE FUELS
PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS
PERFORMANCE
PROPULSION SYSTEMS
REACTOR CORES
ROCKET ENGINES
SOLID SOLUTIONS
SPACE POWER REACTORS
TANTALUM CARBIDES
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
THERMAL HYDRAULICS
TUNGSTEN CARBIDES
URANIUM CARBIDES
ZIRCONIUM CARBIDES
NESDPS Office of Nuclear Energy Space and Defense Power Systems