Proposed Flight Research of a Dual-Bell Rocket Nozzle Using the NASA F-15 Airplane

Author: Jones, Daniel S.
Published: September 2013.
Physical Description: 1 electronic document
Additional Creators: Bui, Trong T. and Ruf, Joseph H.

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Summary

For more than a half-century, several types of altitude-compensating rocket nozzles have been proposed and analyzed, but very few have been adequately tested in a relevant flight environment. One type of altitude-compensating nozzle is the dual-bell rocket nozzle, which was first introduced into literature in 1949. Despite the performance advantages that have been predicted, both analytically and through static test data, the dual-bell nozzle has still not been adequately tested in a relevant flight environment. This paper proposes a method for conducting testing and research with a dual-bell rocket nozzle in a flight environment. We propose to leverage the existing NASA F-15 airplane and Propulsion Flight Test Fixture as the flight testbed, with the dual-bell nozzle operating during captive-carried flights, and with the nozzle subjected to a local flow field similar to that of a launch vehicle. The primary objective of this effort is not only to advance the technology readiness level of the dual-bell nozzle, but also to gain a greater understanding of the nozzle mode transitional sensitivity to local flow-field effects, and to quantify the performance benefits with this technology. The predicted performance benefits are significant, and may result in reducing the cost of delivering payloads to low-Earth orbit.

Other Subject(s)

Collection

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) Collection.

Note

Document ID: 20140003943.
NASA/TM-2013-216590.
DFRC-E-DAA-TN10495.

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