Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference (한국추진공학회:학술대회논문집)
- 2004.03a
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- Pages.148-154
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- 2004
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- 1975-342X(pISSN)
Evaluation on the Characteristics of Liquefied Natural Gas as a Fuel of Liquid Rocket Engine
- Namkoung, Hyuck-joon (Rotem Company) ;
- Han, Poong-Gyoo (Rotem Compan) ;
- Kim, Kyoung-Ho (Rotem Company)
- Published : 2004.03.01
Abstract
As a rocket propellent of hydrocarbon fuels, the characteristics of liquefied natural gas was evaluated with the viewpoint of the constituents and content, the cooling performance as a coolant, and characteristic velocity and specific impulse as parameters of the engine performance. Content of methane was a principal factor to determine the characteristics as a rocket propellant and more than 90 % of it was needed as a fuel and coolant in the regenerative cooled liquid rocket engine. Some constituents of the liquefied natural gas can be frozen by the pre-cooling of the pipe lines, therefore they can be a factor disturbing the normal working of engine. In case the content of methane is around 90% in the liquefied natural gas, a normalized stoichiometric O/F mixture ratio of 0.75 is suggested for a nominal operation condition to get the maximum specific impulse and characteristic velocity.
Keywords
- Liquefied Natural Gas;
- Liquid Rocket Engine;
- Fuel;
- Regenerative Cooling;
- Characteristic Velocity;
- Specific Impulse