Booster Stage Research Articles

Cascaded proton acceleration by collisionless electrostatic shock

A new scheme for proton acceleration by cascaded collisionless electrostatic shock (CES) is proposed. By irradiating a foil target with a moderate high-intensity laser beam, a stable CES field can be induced, which is employed as the accelerating field for the booster stage of proton acceleration. The mechanism is studied through simulations and theoretical analysis, showing that a 55 MeV seed proton beam can be further accelerated to 265 MeV while keeping a good energy spread. This scheme offers a feasible approach to produce proton beams with energy of hundreds of MeV by existing available high-intensity laser facilities.

Lahat BWRO plant: technical and economic evaluation of energy recovery alternatives

The Lahat BWRO plant was constructed as part of the southern Israel coastal aquifer rehabilitation project. Two RO trains, with a capacity of 10,000 m3/d each, were commissioned in August 2010. In both trains a turbocharger (TC) energy recovery device was installed, wherein the turbine side utilizes the energy of the second stage brine to boost the second stage feed. Lahat plant expansion with two additional 11,300 m3/d BWRO trains is currently under construction. As part of the pre-design phase, a techno-economic analysis was conducted with the purpose of finding the most cost-effective energy recovery configuration. Comparing existing design of TC added with a booster pump with alternative isobaric energy recovery with ERI PX devices, it was shown that implementation of isobaric PX results in a life cycle saving of 1,091,882$, about 1.5 times more than the TC alternative. Accordingly, in the design of the two additional RO units, isobaric energy recovery device was implemented. Apart from the cost benefit, this configuration has several advantages versus the TC, mainly the control of the second stage booster pressure with increased accuracy and flexibility. This enables a better balance of the first and second stage flux in comparison with TC option. The current paper includes an introduction about the southern Israel coastal aquifer rehabilitation project, and the construction plan of the Gat, Granot, and Lahat brackish water RO BWRO desalination plants. In addition, it presents the complexity of the marine brine disposal pipeline of these inland plants, and the rational that led to the innovative idea of energy recovery in the Lahat BWRO plant. Finally, the technical and economic considerations of energy recovery alternatives in BWRO plants are discussed and summarized.

Challenges in the development of a slow burning solid rocket booster

Solid rocket motors always find a place in launch vehicles, especially as booster stages on account of their capability to deliver higher thrust needed during the initial phase of flight, most importantly during lift-off phase. The newly developed slow burning solid booster is chosen for the first stage of Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstration (RLV-TD) flight programme. This suborbital two stage technology demonstration programme is aimed for a hypersonic re-entry of double delta wing vehicle from an altitude of nearly 65–70 km, where the first stage of vehicle is identified as solid booster. Therefore, the desirable Mach number of the vehicle at motor burnout (30–35 km) is essentially required to be minimum 6 to attain hypersonic re-entry. The contradictory mission requirements like achieving the desired Mach number and limiting the dynamic pressure demanded for design, development and qualification of a new motor with slowest burning solid propellant thereby an action time of nearly 90 s. The challenges faced in the design, development, realization and qualification of the motor through two successful static tests are discussed in this paper. The special attention given for motor case with 2 mm shell thickness, development of a slow burn rate propellant, ignition strategies for the slow burn rate propellant, stable burning of the low burn rate propellant and flow separation related issues for ground test are highlighted.

First carrot, then stick: how the adaptive hybridization of incentives promotes cooperation.

Social institutions often use rewards and penalties to promote cooperation. Providing incentives tends to be costly, so it is important to find effective and efficient policies for the combined use of rewards and penalties. Most studies of cooperation, however, have addressed rewarding and punishing in isolation and have focused on peer-to-peer sanctioning as opposed to institutional sanctioning. Here, we demonstrate that an institutional sanctioning policy we call ‘first carrot, then stick’ is unexpectedly successful in promoting cooperation. The policy switches the incentive from rewarding to punishing when the frequency of cooperators exceeds a threshold. We find that this policy establishes and recovers full cooperation at lower cost and under a wider range of conditions than either rewards or penalties alone, in both well-mixed and spatial populations. In particular, the spatial dynamics of cooperation make it evident how punishment acts as a ‘booster stage’ that capitalizes on and amplifies the pro-social effects of rewarding. Together, our results show that the adaptive hybridization of incentives offers the ‘best of both worlds’ by combining the effectiveness of rewarding in establishing cooperation with the effectiveness of punishing in recovering it, thereby providing a surprisingly inexpensive and widely applicable method of promoting cooperation.

Booster stage adaptive backstepping tracking control for interceptor

An adaptive backstepping tracking controller in the presence of uncertain parameters and external disturbance is designed for the thrust vector-controlled interceptor during its booster stage. The dynamic equation is formulated into a parametric-strict-feedback form under reasonable assumption. The controller design is decomposed into two loops, which are aerodynamic angle loop and angular rate loop. The whole closed system is proved to converge into a compact set asymptotically by employing feedback control laws and adaptive estimate laws designed in this paper. The controller proposed here has two main advantages. First, it can deal with the disturbances whose bounds have the expression of all system states. Second, there is no chattering in the tracking process by using continuous hyperbolic tangent function in place of sign function. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method in this paper not only afford strong capability but also achieve a fast and accurate response of resistance to parameters uncertainty and external disturbances.

Design and Simulation of Aero-Engine Combination Vortex Fuel Pump

To solve the problem that single stage booster pump has the problem of low oil pressure at low speed condition. Paper gave a design method for three stage combination vortex pump which uses radial series. The preliminary structural parameters of the vortex pump were designed by using the empirical coefficient method. Then Hex/Wedge grid is used to generate mesh for the established 3D model of the vortex pump. The final structure parameters were obtained by CFD numerical simulation optimization iterately. Finally, the flow field of combination vortex pump was analyzed. Simulation results show that: The combination vortex pump meet the design requirements.

Experimental studies for semi-cryo engine development

Development of Cryogenic engine is essential requirement in order to improve the pay load capability of rocket launching systems. Cryogenic stage is more suitable for the upper stage of the launch vehicle mainly due to the high specific impulse and relatively low structural weight. As the pay load increases a high thrust booster engine is also required for the launch vehicle. Semi cryogenic propulsion is ideally suitable for booster engine, in terms of higher density impulse and low cost and easy handling. LPSC has undertaken the development of Semi Cryo Engine to power the booster stages of India's future launch vehicles. The Engine works on Oxidizer rich staged combustion cycle, using LOX and Isrosene propellant combination. Preburner (PB) and Thrust Chamber (TC) are the major subsystems of the engine. PB produces the hot gases at lower temperature for driving the turbo pump which raises the propellant pressure and TC produces hot gas in the chamber at high temperature which expands through the nozzle for generating thrust. Design of injector and arrangement of injector are critical in the design of pre burner and Thrust chamber so as to admit and meter the propellants into the chamber with proper mixture to ensure complete and stable combustion. The propellants require ignition source for initiating ignition. A mixture of Tri-ethyl Aluminium and Tri-ethyl Boron (TEA/TEB) is used as a source of ignition which is hypergolic with oxygen. In order to understand the behavior of the different systems and technology involved, it is planned to design and realize injector and evaluate the characteristics of its performance during cold flow as well as hot test. The development programme is planned in two phases. Initially Single element pre burner and thrust chamber hardware are realized, cold flow test are carried out and hot test are being done. It is also planned to realize subscale thrust chamber and pre burner as a phase-2 activity to study the behavior of multi element interaction and its performance. A lot of critical technologies are to be developed and demonstrated prior to the development of full scale engine. The characterization of injector elements, performance validation at near operating conditions, Ignition characteristics of hypergolic liquid, validation of material, evaluation of different coating are set for the objectives of the initial phase of tests. This paper discuss the different experimental studies carried out, experimental results and features of hardware, design aspects, cold flow characteristics, hot test result for the initial phase of development and also future plan of action.

Dispersion Reduction for a Sounding Rocket Scramjet Flight Experiment

A low cost method for reducing the dispersion in the trajectory of an unguided, spinstabilized, sounding rocket is developed and presented. The method is particularly suited to scramjet flight experimentation because the approach increases the likelihood of meeting Mach number and dynamic pressure objectives. The paper discusses the design and model of the scramjet payload, and two-stage launch vehicle, and the nominal trajectory, as well as a Monte Carlo analysis to quantify the likelihood of a successful scramjet test. Using the results of this analysis, a method is presented for reducing the dispersion in freestream conditions during the scramjet test window. The dispersion reduction is accomplished by modifying the time delay between the burnout of the first stage booster and the ignition of the second stage based on the vehicle state measured during the interstage coast. This method increases the likelihood of a successful test from 71% to 99% without adversely affecting range safety. Since the design and implementation of a vehicle guided control system is not required, this method is relatively inexpensive, making its use highly desirable for low cost scramjet flight experimentation.

Fuzzy Thrust Staging Kinematics for the NERVA Strap-On Boosters

NERVA small space launcher under development in Romania by Politehnica University is based on the solution of hard take-off with three strep-on SRM boosters. Due to the very high thrust enhancement a lift-off loading of more than 40 g-s appears, which is quite challenging. The main challenge is connected with the possible uneven thrust and burn duration of the three SRE-s of the first stage, which we call fuzzy thrust. Experimental data show variations of up to 0.5 seconds in the duration of the powered phase of SRE-s, from a total of 3.0 seconds of a mean burn. Yet undetermined variations in the total ignition delay between individual motors are a stronger concern. While for the unique booster of the standard SA-2 vehicle the ignition delay has no impact, when those engines are forced to work in parallel the individual differences become catastrophic. Severe imbalance between the two lateral engines may occur, ending in a potentially severe damage of the launching rail, possible loss of flight stability along the boost phase and damage of the second stage structure. The problems regarding the efficiency of the propulsion system that accompany this project are considered and solutions are proposed for the high thrust augmentation of the booster stage. Cryogenic vs storable propellants are studied for thrust augmentation of the boosters.

Optical amplification and optical filter based signal processing for cost and energy efficient spatial multiplexing

Spatial division multiplexing has been proposed as an option for further capacity increase of transmission fibers. Application of this concept is attractive only, if cost and energy efficient implementations can be found. In this work, optical amplification and optical filter based signal processing concepts are investigated. Deployment of multi mode fibers as the waveguide type for erbium doped fiber amplifiers potentially offers cost and energy efficiency advantages compared to using multi core fibers in preamplifier as well as booster stages. Additional advantages can be gained from optimization of the amplifier module design. Together with transponder design optimizations, they can increase the attractiveness of inverse spatial multiplexing, which is proposed as an intermediate step. Signal processing based on adaptive passive optical filters offers an alternative approach for the separation of channels at the receiver which have experienced mode coupling along the link. With this optical filter based approach, fiber capacity can potentially be increased faster and more energy efficiently than with solutions relying solely on electronic signal processing.

Some Aspects Concerning the Design of Multistage Earth Orbit Launchers Using Electromagnetic Acceleration

This paper reports on reflections undertaken to establish a possible multistage space-launch system based on the use of combined electromagnetic and rocket launch technology. It is assumed that the direct access to space is not possible using a single-stage system only, since for such a system, muzzle velocities of approximately 10 km/s are required. Multistage chemical rockets have been successfully used for Low Earth Orbit missions. They are now a mature technology; continued system efficiency improvements are expected to yield only marginal progress. Alternative technology paths, such as the Lorentz rail accelerator (LRA), hold the potential for considerable improvements in first-stage efficiencies compared to rocket systems. Such unconventional solution has serious consequences for the accelerator and payload carrier design. In the first part of this paper, some general aspects (size, forces, energy, and power) of an electromagnetic launcher, which could be able to achieve the required muzzle momentum for such a mission, are discussed. More specifically, the design of such a launcher with respect to the type of electromagnetic LRAs (known also as railguns) and to the armature technology is considered, and also, some of the interstage aspects of such a system are investigated. Special attention is paid to solutions increasing the launch efficiency of the electromagnetic launcher. The second part of this paper considers possible design properties of the rocket carrier (booster and kickoff stage). Propulsion system, structure under high acceleration, thermal protection system (TPS), carrier aerodynamics, and flight mechanic properties are analyzed. The performed analysis confirms that the rocket carrier can be realized with the present technology within the next decade. The conclusion is valid under the assumption that a start velocity from a ground-based electromagnetic LRA is limited to about 4.5 km/s if an adequate TPS is applied. At higher velocities, the extreme heat loads destroy the payload carrier.

Characteristics of Infrasonic Signals from Rockets

Summary Infrasound has been recorded at long range from the launch and the re-entry of the first stage booster of Saturn V rockets. Detailed study has been made with the use of an acoustic ray-tracing procedure that involved actual temperature and wind data at the launch site and along the propagation path. Details of signal arrival times and duration are shown to be controlled by the nature of the ground-based sound channel, which in turn is determined by the atmospheric structure below about 60 km. Fluctuations in signal amplitudes are explained on the basis of interference of acoustic rays.

High-Performance Rocket Nozzle Concept

An innovative technical solution that overcomes the limitation induced by flow separation phenomena and allows increasing the vacuum-specific impulse of a main stage rocket engine is presented. After reviewing the open technical literature on flow separation and advance nozzles design, the newly proposed concept is extensively presented. Three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics analyses and experimental results (cold gas subscale models) demonstrate the effectiveness of a simple device, adaptable to any bell-shaped nozzle and which provides a solution to the flow separation issue, while increasing vacuum-specific impulse performances for booster and main stage engines. Moreover, this new concept gives rise to a wider engine-throttling range, even at low altitude, without incurring flow separation and associated side loads. Experimental data show a potential for favorable behavior even during transient phases, allowing significant reduction on transient side-loads activity. Finally, three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics computations have been extended to the hot firing case (chemically reactive hydrogen/ oxygen propellants), both in steady-state and transient conditions. The results show the suitability of the proposed concept for application to real rocket engines.

Observations of single-pass ion cyclotron heating in a trans-sonic flowing plasma

The VAriable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR®) is a high power electric spacecraft propulsion system, capable of Isp/thrust modulation at constant power [F. R. Chang Díaz et al., Proceedings of the 39th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, Reno, NV, 8–11 Jan. 2001]. The VASIMR® uses a helicon discharge to generate plasma. This plasma is energized by an rf booster stage that uses left hand polarized slow mode waves launched from the high field side of the ion cyclotron resonance. In the experiments reported in this paper, the booster uses 2–4 MHz waves with up to 50 kW of power. This process is similar to the ion cyclotron heating (ICH) in tokamaks, but in the VASIMR® the ions only pass through the resonance region once. The rapid absorption of ion cyclotron waves has been predicted in recent theoretical studies. These theoretical predictions have been supported with several independent measurements in this paper. The single-pass ICH produced a substantial increase in ion velocity. Pitch angle distribution studies showed that this increase took place in the resonance region where the ion cyclotron frequency was roughly equal to the frequency on the injected rf waves. Downstream of the resonance region the perpendicular velocity boost should be converted to axial flow velocity through the conservation of the first adiabatic invariant as the magnetic field decreases in the exhaust region of the VASIMR®. This paper will review all of the single-pass ICH ion acceleration data obtained using deuterium in the first VASIMR® physics demonstrator machine, the VX-50. During these experiments, the available power to the helicon ionization stage increased from 3 to 20+ kW. The increased plasma density produced increased plasma loading of the ICH coupler. Starting with an initial demonstration of single-pass ion cyclotron acceleration, the experiments demonstrate significant improvements in coupler efficiency and in ion heating efficiency. In deuterium plasma, ≥80% efficient absorption of 20 kW of ICH input power was achieved. No clear evidence for power limiting instabilities in the exhaust beam has been observed.

Multi-terawatt chirped pulse optical parametric amplifier with a time-shear power amplification stage

We report on a compact and simple, broadband optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier system that amplifies femtosecond pulses directly from a titanium sapphire oscillator up to 2 TW power. Our system relies on a new technique - time shear - that improves the time overlap between the seed and pump pulses and, thus, improves the efficiency of the power amplification stage pumped with a ns laser. Parametric amplification was achieved in two stages: a multipass, noncollinear geometry preamplifier with a single beta-barium borate crystal, and a power booster stage incorporating three beta-barium borate crystals in the new time-shear design. Both stages were pumped with pulses from a commercial 10 Hz frequency doubled ns Nd:YAG laser. The system delivers 49 mJ pulses with a temporal width of 23 fs and its overall conversion efficiency after pulse compression is 10%.

A novel combined Hib-MenC-TT glycoconjugate vaccine as a booster dose for toddlers: a phase 3 open randomised controlled trial

Objective:To study the immunogenicity and reactogenicity of a combined Haemophilus influenzae type b and Neisseria meningitidis serogroup C tetanus toxoid conjugate vaccine (Hib-MenC-TT) when administered as a booster dose in...

Electromagnetic ion cyclotron resonance heating in the VASIMR

Plasma physics has found an increasing range of practical industrial applications, including the development of electric spacecraft propulsion systems. One of these systems, the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) engine, both applies several important physical processes occurring in the magnetosphere. These processes include the mechanisms involved in the ion acceleration and heating that occur in the Birkeland currents of an auroral arc system. Auroral current region processes that are simulated in VASIMR include lower hybrid heating, parallel electric field acceleration and ion cyclotron acceleration. This paper will focus on using a physics demonstration model VASIMR to study ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH). The major purpose is to provide a VASIMR status report to the COSPAR community. The VASIMR uses a helicon antenna with up to 20 kW of power to generate plasma. This plasma is energized by an RF booster stage that uses left hand polarized slow mode waves launched from the high field side of the ion cyclotron resonance. The present setup for the booster uses 2–4 MHz waves with up to 20 kW of power. This process is similar to the ion cyclotron heating in tokamaks, but in the VASIMR the ions only pass through the resonance region once. The rapid absorption of ion cyclotron waves has been predicted in recent theoretical studies. These theoretical predictions have been supported with several independent measurements in this paper. The ICRH produced a substantial increase in ion velocity. Pitch angle distribution studies show that this increase takes place in the resonance region where the ion cyclotron frequency is equal to the frequency on the injected RF waves. Downstream of the resonance region the perpendicular velocity boost should be converted to axial flow velocity through the conservation of the first adiabatic invariant as the magnetic field decreases in the exhaust region of the VASIMR. In deuterium plasma, 80% efficient absorption of 20 kW of ICRH input power has been achieved. No evidence for power limiting instabilities in the exhaust beam has been observed.

Characteristics pertinent to propagation of pulsating pressure in the channels of turbine machines

A new model describing the propagation of the pressure pulsations in the intricately shaped channels of turbine machines is presented. The proposed model was successfully used to analyze two emergency events: a failure of a steam turbine’s cast diaphragm and a failure of a rocket engine’s oxygen pump booster stage.

Magnetic booster fast ignition macron accelerator

A new fast ignition scheme was recently proposed where the ignition is done by the impact of a small solid projectile accelerated to velocities in excess of 108cm∕s, with the acceleration done in two steps: first, by laser ablation of a flyer plate, and second by injecting the flyer plate into a conical duct. The two principal difficulties of this scheme are as follows: first, the required large mass ratio for the laser ablation rocket propelled flyer plate, and second, the Rayleigh-Taylor instability of the flyer plate during its implosive compression in the conical duct. To overcome these difficulties, it is suggested to accelerate a projectile by a magnetic fusion booster stage, made up of a dense, wall-confined magnetized plasma brought to thermonuclear temperatures. After ignition, this plasma undergoes a thermonuclear excursion greatly increasing its pressure, resulting in the explosion of a weakened segment of the wall, with the segment becoming a fast moving projectile. The maximum velocity this projectile can reach is the velocity of sound of the booster stage plasma, which at a temperature of 108K is of the order 108cm∕s.

Investigation of Two-Stage-to-Orbit Airbreathing Launch-Vehicle Configurations

A conceptual design study was performed to assess and compare the parameters of two-stage-to-orbit airbreathing launch-vehicle systems in an effort to identify optimal configurations for improved access to space. The following vehicle configuration categories were considered: horizontal takeoff ramjet-scramjet boosters with upper-stage reusable rockets, horizontal takeoff turbine boosters with ramjet-scramjet upper stages, and vertical takeoff rocket boosters with ramjet-scramjet upper stages. Ramjet-scramjet upper stages utilize integrated rockets for final orbital ascent. Ramjet-scramjet booster stages make use of either integrated turbines or rockets for takeoff and acceleration to ramjet start. The payload requirement for each vehicle system is 20,000 lb delivered to a 100-n mile low Earth orbit. The vehicle solutions were evaluated utilizing several figures of merit including empty weight, wetted area, actively cooled area, gross weight, staging considerations, and design and technology traceability to future development of single-stage-to-orbit hypersonic airbreathing vehicles. The application of these criteria to the closed vehicle solutions reveals that the vertically launched rocket booster with an upper-stage ramjet-scramjet is the best two-stage airbreathing launch vehicle configuration. Of all of the two-stage vehicles investigated, those which place the hypersonic propulsion elements as part of the upper stage surpass those with first-stage placement and exhibit more design traceability with single-stage-to-orbit airbreathing launch vehicles.