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I've found this interesting papers about the Russian gas core nuclear rocket.
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/ind … al-rocket/
Instead of confining the core in a vortex, Valentin Glushko used a stream of hot UF4 gas that runs straight in the chamber from an emitter to a collector, where is cooled, centrifugated for isotopic separation and emitted again in the chamber. Instead of tungsten particle, he used lithium vapor to keep hydrogen opaque. The Isp is about 2000 s and the T/W ratio is about 10.
With this configuration start-up and shut-down are very simple and the core is automatically reuptaken after every burn. As I remember the problem of core reuptake was never addressed in Lewis type gas core rocket. I'm not an expert but it seems to me that Glusko's project was almost complete and near to be assembled.
Last edited by Quaoar (2017-02-10 14:59:24)
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So they built the thing in multiple experimental forms and it worked! 2000 sec Isp at engine T/W ~ 10. Not bad at all! Plus, the start-up solid core rig is an electric power generator between gas core "burns". Very nice! Many thanks, Quaoar!
GW
update/edit: no they never actually built one! I found a report on line done for the nuke group in Idaho in 1992 documenting this. The design was more advanced than the one on the US side, but the critical experiments were never funded or ever done.
That on-line report is difficult to download in a readable form. I have a pdf copy of it, but I can copy nothing from it, nor characterize what it actually is or where it came from. Some sort of government security must still be applied to this. Either that, or somebody is trying to sell it. Not sure which as of this date.
The RD-600-series nuke engines were never actually built and tested, that much is clear.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-02-10 16:00:27)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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I seem to recall a rather heated debate about the TRL level of gas core reactors. I think this more than demonstrates the feasibility of the gas core nuclear rocket.
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So they built the thing in multiple experimental forms and it worked! 2000 sec Isp at engine T/W ~ 10. Not bad at all! Plus, the start-up solid core rig is an electric power generator between gas core "burns". Very nice! Many thanks, Quaoar!
GW
update/edit: no they never actually built one! I found a report on line done for the nuke group in Idaho in 1992 documenting this. The design was more advanced than the one on the US side, but the critical experiments were never funded or ever done.
That on-line report is difficult to download in a readable form. I have a pdf copy of it, but I can copy nothing from it, nor characterize what it actually is or where it came from. Some sort of government security must still be applied to this. Either that, or somebody is trying to sell it. Not sure which as of this date.
The RD-600-series nuke engines were never actually built and tested, that much is clear.
GW
Thanks for your reply, GW.
I just have some doubt about how is possible to hold the collector inside the hydrogen hot stream. May be some other type of configuration (eg. an aerospike engine) would be better?
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Sorry, Quaoar, nuke engines are just too far outside what I know to have an opinion.
I know the Russians usually do things differently than the US did. I also know that they built some solid core engines as the RD-400-series. Externally, the equipment looks quite different from the NERVA engines the US built.
Over here, the gas core concepts divided into "light bulb" engines with separation of fission plasma from propellant, leading to a clean exhaust, and "open cycle" engines with fission plasma in contact with propellant flow, leading to a radioactive exhaust. Some bench test concept tests were done, but no engine was ever built and tested.
I haven't yet digested everything about what the Russians did, but it looks to be outside those two US concept classifications. They did a lot more experiments than we ever did. It appears that they might have gotten closer to actually building one than we in the US ever did.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-02-13 11:06:34)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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Here's what I know about Nuclear Thermal Rockets and the NERVA Project.
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I got to meet one of the last surviving handful of NERVA engineers a few years ago at the Mars Society convention in Dallas. Bought his book in paperback. They answered an awful lot of the "don't do it this way" questions as regards solid core, that's for sure.
Some of the equipment they and the nuclear ramjet boys used at Jackass Flats NV is still there (glows blue at night). Most is gone now.
Oddly enough, my dad remembered the nuclear ramjet project when I asked him about a year or so before he died. Project Pluto, that was. Government-developed and supplied reactor. LTV (then Chance Vought) supplied airframe and supersonic inlet. Mach 3 low-altitude intercontinental cruise missile. Never built, fortunately, as it would have killed more folks on the ground with plume radiation and lethal shockwave noise than at the target with a 5 MT warhead.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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GW,
What was the name of the book?
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Kbd512:
I have the book around here somewhere, but could not lay hands on it. I did find the data online. It's one of 3 he wrote on nuclear power in space. Here's the data on the one I have:
Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Systems by David Buden
Key Features
Author(s) David Buden
Publisher Polaris Books
Date of Publication 25/07/2011
Language English
Format Paperback / softback
ISBN-10 0974144339
ISBN-13 9780974144337
Subject Transport Technology
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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GW,
Thank you for the info on the book. I found it on Amazon, along with several other titles from the same author.
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