Rocket Propulsion

P M V Subbarao
Professor
Mechanical Engineering Department

No Breathing of air
Travel with no Gravity and no Drag.

Rocket Thrust
Rocket ejects mass at a given momentum rate
from the nozzle and receives a thrust in the
opposite direction.
Momentum rate of ejects:

m
ejectsUejects
M
There may also be a thrust component due to
pressure field in nozzle.
Thrust may be increased by either increasing
ejects (propellant) flow rate or exhaust velocity.

Pay Load

Fuel

Rocket Motion

Nozzle
Flow of Ejects

Rocket Motion
Suppose we have a rocket of total mass 2m, of which m is
payload and m is fuel.
As the fuel is burned, it is ejected with some constant velocity
V relative to the rocket, creating (we assume) constant thrust.
Let us simplify matters by also assuming the launch is from
some point in space, so that the thrust of the engine only has
to overcome the rocket's inertia.
In launches from the ground, part of the thrust is needed to
overcome gravity too.

 The rocket accelerates gradually.

Starting from rest, its moves rather slowly at first.
After a while, however, not only is its velocity greater
but its acceleration has grown too.
At first, nearly the entire mass 2m must be accelerated,
but as fuel is used up, the mass being accelerated is
less and less.
By the time a mass m of fuel has been burned--half the
starting mass of the rocket--its acceleration has doubled
because the same push is applied only to a mass m.
The payload now has gained velocity V.
But we need more!

 So we build a rocket of mass 4m, of which 2m is fuel, while

the payload, also of mass 2m, is the smaller rocket
described before, serving as second stage.
When the fuel of the big rocket is finished, we reach a
velocity V, then the second stage is ignited, adding another
V to the velocity of the payload, for a total of 2V.
Still faster!
Now the rocket has mass 8M of which 4M is fuel of the first
stage, while 4M is the two-stage rocket of the preceding
design.
The first stage gives velocity V, to which the other two add
2V, for a total of 3V.
By now we can see the trend.

If the mass of the final payload is m, then

Total mass
2M
4M
8M
16M
32M
64M

Gives final velocity

V
2V
3V
4V
5V
6V

Rocket Principles
High pressure/temperature/velocity exhaust gases
provided through combustion and expansion through
nozzle of suitable fuel and oxidiser mixture.
A rocket carries both the fuel and oxidiser onboard
the vehicle whereas an air-breather engine takes in
its oxygen supply from the atmosphere.

Military History of Rockets

First military use of proper
rockets was by Chinese in
1232 in Battle of Kai-Keng v
Mongols.
Used gunpowder (saltpeter,
sulphur, charcoal mixture) to
fill capped bamboo tubes
attached to arrows - known
as fire arrows.

 Mongols then produced rockets of their own and use

spread across Europe via Arabs.
In England, Roger Bacon improved gunpowder
mixture to greatly increase range.
In France, Jean Froissant improved flight accuracy
by tube-launching (forerunner of bazooka).

 By 16th century, rockets were only used for

fireworks, though one breakthrough was made by
German Johann Schmidlap.
He was the first to use staging - a firework with a
large sky rocket (1st stage) jettisoned after burn-out
with a smaller 2nd stage going to a higher altitude.
Basis behind all of todays space rockets.

 By late 17th century, Newtons laws were being

applied to rockets.
German and Russian rocket experimenters built
powerful rockets with masses above 45 kg.
Military use again by Indian army in 1792 & 1799
against British.
Led to British use, designs by Col William Congreve
used by British ships v Fort McHenry in war of 1814
(rockets red glare in Star-Spangled Banner).

 Rocket inaccuracy continued to be a big bugbear

but was significantly improved due to Englands
William Hales discovery of spin stabilisation - using
the exhaust gas to strike small vanes and give the
rocket spin.
Advances in breech-loaded cannon with rifled barrels
and exploding warheads (e.g. by Prussians v
Austrians) led to another demise in military rocket
use.

 Probably began with Russias Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

(1857-1935) who proposed idea of space exploration
by rockets in 1903!
Suggested use of liquid propellants for increased range
and stated that speed and range were limited only by
jet velocity of escaping gas.
Also came up with mathematical range equations.

 Next major pioneering work done by Robert Goddard

(1882-1945) in USA, conducting practical rocket
experiments.
Began with solid propellant rockets in 1915 but then
produced worlds first liquid propellant rocket in 1926
(liquid oxygen and gasoline).

 Followed by Herman Oberth (1894-1989) in

Transylvania.
Published an important book on the use of rockets for
space travel in 1923.
His work led to further military development of the
rocket in the form of the infamous German V-2
(known as A-4 in Germany), used against London in
WW2.

V-2
Programme directed by Wernher Von Braun.
Burnt mixture of liquid oxygen and alcohol at rate
of 130 kg/s for about a 70 s to develop maximum
thrust of about 725 kN - ballistic coast to target.
Introduced too late to change outcome of war but
led to swift development of ICBMs.

 Maximum speed - approx 1340 m/s.

Impact velocity - approx 1100 m/s (> Mach 3).
Typical range/altitude of 350/90 km respectively.
Carried 1 ton explosive warhead.
Launch mass about 13000 kg, impact mass about
4040 kg.

V-2 Propulsion System

19

Ballistic Missiles
V-2 technology developed after
WW2 into ballistic missile
applications with German rocket
engineers working on both US
and USSR programmes.
Eventually came ICBMs, many
also serving as space launch
vehicles (e.g. Soviet R-7 and
US Atlas).
R-7 Sapwood ICBM

Some US Ballistic Missiles

Missile

Launch Propellant
Mass (t)

Range
(km)

Deployed

Redstone

27

Liquid

400

1959

Atlas

120

Liquid

14,000

1959

Titan 2

150

2 stage liquid 15,000

1963

Minuteman 2

34

3 stage solid

12,500

1966

Polaris

14

2 stage solid

4,600

1964

Trident

59

3 stage solid

12,000

1990

Some Indian Missiles

Missile

Launch Propellant
Mass
(t)

Range
(km)

Agni-I

12

1 stage Solid 850

1989

Agni - II

16

2.5 stage
solid

2004

Agni - III

50

2 stage solid 5,500

Prithvi-I

4.4

single stage
liquid

150

1988

Prithvi-II

14

Single stage
liquid

250

1996

Prithvi-III

59

Single stage
solid

600

2004

3,500

Deployed

Criteria of Performance
Specific to rockets only.

thrust
specific impulse
total impulse
effective exhaust velocity
thrust coefficient
characteristic velocity

Thrust (F)
For a rocket engine:

ejectsUejects A e p e pamb
FT m
Where:

m&

= propellant mass flow rate

pe = exit pressure, paamb = ambient pressure

Uejects = exit plane velocity, Ae = exit area

Specific Impulse (I or Isp)

The ratio of thrust / ejects mass flow rate is used to define a
rockets specific impulse-best measure of overall performance
of rocket motor.

FT
Isp
m ejects

In SI terms, the units of I are m/s or Ns/kg.

In the US:
with units of seconds - multiply by g (i.e. 9.80665 m/s 2)
in order to obtain SI units of m/s or Ns/kg.
Losses mean typical values are 92% to 98% of ideal values.

Total Impulse (Itot)

tb

Defined as:

Itotal FT dt
0

where tb = time of burning

If FT is constant during burn:

Itotal FT tb


Thus the same total impulse may be obtained
by either :
high FT, short tb (usually preferable), or
low FT, long tb
Also, for constant propellant consumption (ejects)
rate:

Itotal

FT

m ejects tb
m ejects

Effective Exhaust Velocity (c)

Convenient to define an effective exhaust
velocity (c), where:

ejectsc
FT m
c Ue

FT
c
I
ejects
m

p e pamb Ae

ejects
m

Thrust Coefficient (CF)

Defined as:

FT
CF
Pc A t

where pc = combustion chamber pressure,

At = nozzle throat area
Depends primarily on (pc/pa) so a good indicator
of
nozzle performance dominated by pressure
ratio.

Characteristic Velocity (c*)

Defined as:

Pc A t
C
ejects
m
(6)
*

Calculated from standard test data.

It is independent of nozzle performance and is
therefore used as a measure of combustion
efficiency dominated by Tc (combustion chamber
temperature).

Thermodynamic Performance
of Rocket Engines
Parameters mentioned above now covered in
greater depth, using following simplifying
assumptions :

combustion gases obey perfect gas laws.

constant specific heat for combustion gases.
1-D flow.
no frictional losses.
no heat transfer to walls.
combustion complete before gas enters nozzle.
process steady with respect to time.

Thermodynamic Performance - Thrust

Parameters affecting thrust are primarily:

mass flow rate

exhaust velocity
exhaust pressure
nozzle exit area

Thermodynamic Performance
- Specific Impulse

Thermodynamic Performance
- Specific Impulse
Variable Parameters - Observations

Strong pressure ratio effect - but rapidly diminishing returns

after about 30:1.
High Tc value desirable for high I - but gives problems with
heat transfer into case walls and dissociation of combustion
products practical limit between about 2750 and 3500 K,
depending on propellant.
Low value of molecular weight desirable favouring use of
hydrogen-based fuels.
Low values of desirable.

Thrust Coefficient (CF)

Maximum thrust when exhausting into a

vacuum (e.g. in space), when:
(11a
)

35

Thrust Coefficient (CF)

- Observations
More desirable to run a rocket under-expanded
(to left of optimum line) rather than over-expanded.
Uses shorter nozzle with reduced weight and size.
Increasing pressure ratio improves performance
but improvements diminish above about 30/1.
Large nozzle exit area required at high pressure
ratios implications for space applications.

Actual Rocket Performance

Performance may be affected by any of the following
deviations to simplifying assumptions:
Properties of products of combustion vary with static
temperature and thus position in nozzle.
Specific heats of combustion products vary with temperature.
Non-isentropic flow in nozzle.
Heat loss to case and nozzle walls.
Pressure drop in combustion chamber due to heat release.
Power required for pumping liquid propellants.
Suspended particles present in exhaust gas.

Internal Ballistics

Liquid propellant engines store fuel and oxidiser

separately - then introduced into combustion chamber.

Solid propellant motors use propellant mixture

containing all material required for combustion.

Majority of modern GW use solid propellant rocket

motors, mainly due to simplicity and storage
advantages.

Internal ballistics is study of combustion process of

solid propellant.

Solid Propellant Combustion

Combustion chamber is high pressure tank
containing propellant charge at whose
surface burning occurs.
No arrangement made for its control charge
ignited and left to itself so must self-regulate
to avoid explosion.
Certain measure of control provided by
charge and combustion chamber design and
with inhibitor coatings.