Core gas dynamics and heat transfer analyses of the COMET nuclear thermal rocket engine

Conference · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1992 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States)

OSTI ID:6671958

Moore, R L; Bennett, R G ^[1]

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1. Idaho National Engineering Lab., Idaho Falls (United States)

There has been a renewed interest in nuclear space propulsion for both the Space Exploration Initiative and military missions. The conical multiple element thruster (COMET) nuclear-thermal rocket engine discussed in this paper is one of several designs that have been proposed as an alternative to the pellet-bed reactor, which the US Air Force has been developing for various military space missions. COMET was designed to have a thrust of 75,000 lb[sub f] and a specific impulse of 900 to 1000 s. The nuclear reactor subsystem consists of 37 fuel assemblies. The core geometry is conical, as is the shape of each individual assembly. A typical fuel assembly, consists of a conical hot flow channel surrounded by a conical fueled region. The fuel region contains [approx] 500 conical fuel wafers, which are each 0.5 mm thick. Each wafer is separated from the adjacent wafers by a 0.1-mm coolant channel, resulting in a fueled region porosity of 20%. Surrounding the fuel region is an annular inlet flow channel. The hydrogen propellant enters the inlet flow channel at the upper end of the fuel assembly at a temperature of [approx] 300 K. As the hydrogen flows down the inlet channel, it is diverted into the narrow fuel coolant channels and heated to [approx] 3150 K as it exits the fuel. The work reported here involved modeling the flow through the conical coolant channels and the hot flow duct of COMET fuel assemblies.

• OSTI ID: 6671958
• Report Number(s): CONF-921102--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States) Journal Volume: 66
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
210600* -- Power Reactors
Auxiliary
Mobile Package
& Transportable
DYNAMICS
ENERGY TRANSFER
ENGINES
FUEL ASSEMBLIES
FUEL CHANNELS
HEAT TRANSFER
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MECHANICS
PROPELLANTS
PROPULSION REACTORS
REACTOR CHANNELS
REACTOR COMPONENTS
REACTOR CORES
REACTORS
ROCKET ENGINES
SPACE FLIGHT
THRUSTERS