First hot fire test campaign at the French/German research facility P8

Abstract

The partners CNES, Dasa, DLR, and SEP have decided to cooperate in the field of H2/O2 high pressure combustion research. The idea behind this collaboration is to concentrate European research activities of industry, research laboratories, and universities, with the aim to increase the basic knowledge about the dominating chemical and physical processes of high pressure hydrogen/oxygen combustion and heat transfer in rocket propulsion devices. For this purpose, a new research and technology test facility for high combustion chamber pressures, the P8, located at the DLR research and test center at Lampoldshause n, Germany, has been erected and is jointly operated by the partners [1] [2]. The paper gives a brief description of the major design features of this new high pressure research facility but concentrates on experimental results of the first hot fire test activities which characterized the operating capabilities of the P8. This first test campaign was made up by a total of 29 tests including 10 hot fire tests with combustion chamber pressures from 2 to 10 MPa. All tests have been successfully performed using a watercooled model combustor designed by DLR. After short presentations of the first technological test campaigns of the different partners and an overview on recently performed improvements of the test facility, the paper finally closes with an outlook on the coming activities on P8.