Paweł Surmacz

Development of a Small Green Bipropellant Rocket Engine Using Hydrogen Peroxide as Oxidizer

This paper gives an overview of the development of an environmental-friendly small bipropellant rocket engine at the Institute of Aviation in Warsaw, Poland. 98% concentration hydrogen peroxide oxidizer and Jet-A fuel are used. A reliable pressure-fed system was chosen and system assembly tests are on-going. The final goal is to enable building and flight-qualifying a larger engine, possible to be used as a large satellite thruster and orbit transfer propulsion system. The paper covers the design and tests of a sub-scale, high contraction ratio, 250-Newton-thrust rocket engine. Fuel is injected into the oxidizer gaseous catalytic decomposition products and pseudo-hypergolic ignition occurs. Results of test firings are presented, with thrust, pressure and temperature measurements given. Special attention is drawn to the process of kerosene autoignition. A novel investigation of kerosene autoignition for very low O/F values, when a high contraction ratio is utilized, was made.

Investigation of spontaneous ignition in a 100 n HTP/HTPB hybrid rocKet engine

The aim of the work is the research on self-ignition phenomena in a hybrid rocket engine. The engine uses 98 % hydrogen peroxide as oxidizer and HTPB (Hydroxyl-Terminated PolyButadiene) as fuel. The condition, that is essential to initiate self-ignition in this system, is the application of a catalytic reactor, which enables the decomposition process of liquid hydrogen peroxide into the mixture of steam and oxygen with the temperature 800 950 deg C. The research has been based on the use of different catalyst materials as well as various configurations of catalyst beds. During the research (hot tests) the following parameters are collected: pressure and temperature at the end of the catalyst bed and the thrust of the engine. The evaluation of the ignition delay (that is counted from the start of the HTP flow) is made on the basis of the chamber pressure as well as on the video recording of the fire test.