Electric pump-fed engine

Electric-feed rocket cycle. The oxidizer and fuel are fed to the pump which increases the pressure before injecting it to the combustion chamber. The pumps are actuated by an electric engine powered by batteries. An inverter converts the batteries DC electricity to the AC needed by the engine. The fuel is also circulated around the nozzle for cooling.

The electric pump-fed is a power cycle of a bipropellant rocket engine. It uses dual electric pumps to increase the pressure from the tank to combustion chamber, generally from 0.2 to 0.3 MPa (29 to 44 psi) to 10 to 20 MPa (1,500 to 2,900 psi). The pumps are actuated by an electric motor, fed by a battery bank. The motors needs a power inverter to convert the batteries direct current to the alternating current that electric motors generally need.[1] Generally, the electric motor and inverter functions are merged by the use of brushless DC electric motor. In this case, the electric waveform is not constrained to a sinusoidal wave, but rather to a bi-directional current with no restriction on waveform.[2]

Usage

Electric pump-fed liquid rocket engines include the following:

Rocket launch systems that use electric pump-fed engines:

See also

References

  1. Rachov, Pablo; Tacca, Hernán; Lentini, Diego (2013). "Electric Feed Systems for Liquid-Propellant Rockets"," (PDF). Journal of Propulsion and Power. AIAA. 29 (5): 1171–1180. doi:10.2514/1.B34714. Retrieved 2016-09-16.
  2. 1 2 3 "Propulsion". Rocket Lab. Archived from the original on 2016-09-19. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
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