Core gas dynamics and heat transfer analyses of the COMET nuclear thermal rocket engine
- 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-; CODEN: TANSAO
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States), Vol. 66; Conference: Joint American Nuclear Society (ANS)/European Nuclear Society (ENS) international meeting on fifty years of controlled nuclear chain reaction: past, present, and future, Chicago, IL (United States), 15-20 Nov 1992; ISSN 0003-018X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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