Blue Origin CEO says next-gen BE-4 rocket engine meets technical requirementsBY ALAN BOYLE on April 19, 2018 at 3:30 pmCOLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — For years, there’s been a big question surrounding the next-generation BE-4 rocket engine that’s being built by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture: Will it be good enough for United Launch Alliance, a crucial prospective customer?Now Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith says the BE-4 has passed all of the technical tests required for ULA to sign onto a production contract.
A few questions about the engine:There seem to be at least 4 different materials, or at least surface finishes - dark grey (lox boost pump), medium grey (fuel valve), light grey (fuel manifold), and shiny. A special material for the pre-burner, turbine, and pre-burner exhaust makes sense, since these need to resist hot oxygen gas. Are the others all different materials, or just different finishes? If different materials, why?Nothing in the structure looks flexible. I'd assume this means some sort of flexible line before the intake ports that we see, and the entire engine moves as a unit when gimballed. Is this correct?
Quote from: HMXHMX on 04/20/2018 04:45 amSo I did have a few minutes to cobble together some captions. In my haste I may have missed or mislabeled something, so corrections welcome.Great job! Minor nit. The arrow for the LOX High Pressure Discharge in Slide 2 is out of place. I've lightened up the image so that you can see the details better.So where is the LNG boost pump? Is it not needed?
So I did have a few minutes to cobble together some captions. In my haste I may have missed or mislabeled something, so corrections welcome.
Quote from: LouScheffer on 04/20/2018 10:13 amA few questions about the engine:There seem to be at least 4 different materials, or at least surface finishes - dark grey (lox boost pump), medium grey (fuel valve), light grey (fuel manifold), and shiny. A special material for the pre-burner, turbine, and pre-burner exhaust makes sense, since these need to resist hot oxygen gas. Are the others all different materials, or just different finishes? If different materials, why?Nothing in the structure looks flexible. I'd assume this means some sort of flexible line before the intake ports that we see, and the entire engine moves as a unit when gimballed. Is this correct?Yes. That's how it is mostly done with gimballing rocket engines.
QuoteBlue Origin CEO says next-gen BE-4 rocket engine meets technical requirementsBY ALAN BOYLE on April 19, 2018 at 3:30 pmCOLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — For years, there’s been a big question surrounding the next-generation BE-4 rocket engine that’s being built by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture: Will it be good enough for United Launch Alliance, a crucial prospective customer?Now Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith says the BE-4 has passed all of the technical tests required for ULA to sign onto a production contract.https://www.geekwire.com/2018/blue-origin-ceo-says-next-gen-4-rocket-engine-meets-technical-requirements/
Quote from: Steven Pietrobon on 04/20/2018 05:45 amQuote from: HMXHMX on 04/20/2018 04:45 amSo I did have a few minutes to cobble together some captions. In my haste I may have missed or mislabeled something, so corrections welcome.Great job! Minor nit. The arrow for the LOX High Pressure Discharge in Slide 2 is out of place. I've lightened up the image so that you can see the details better.So where is the LNG boost pump? Is it not needed?Ah, thanks, fixed.As for the LNG boost pump, like you I noted it wasn't there but don't know why.
Quote from: HMXHMX on 04/20/2018 11:34 amQuote from: Steven Pietrobon on 04/20/2018 05:45 amQuote from: HMXHMX on 04/20/2018 04:45 amSo I did have a few minutes to cobble together some captions. In my haste I may have missed or mislabeled something, so corrections welcome.Great job! Minor nit. The arrow for the LOX High Pressure Discharge in Slide 2 is out of place. I've lightened up the image so that you can see the details better.So where is the LNG boost pump? Is it not needed?Ah, thanks, fixed.As for the LNG boost pump, like you I noted it wasn't there but don't know why.What if what you pointed out at the PB injector isn't actually it, but is buried downstream that within the gray cast structure? That preburner is inline with the main TP shaft and the pressures at the main discharge doesn't make sense...What if that jacket of cold LOX helps with something...Hmm... I'm thinking a kick pump is integrated into the inlet to the preburner assembly where you point to as the injector. The bolt patterns seem to indicate that there is a part bolted internally.
Quote from: Davidthefat on 04/20/2018 07:13 pmQuote from: HMXHMX on 04/20/2018 11:34 amQuote from: Steven Pietrobon on 04/20/2018 05:45 amQuote from: HMXHMX on 04/20/2018 04:45 amSo I did have a few minutes to cobble together some captions. In my haste I may have missed or mislabeled something, so corrections welcome.Great job! Minor nit. The arrow for the LOX High Pressure Discharge in Slide 2 is out of place. I've lightened up the image so that you can see the details better.So where is the LNG boost pump? Is it not needed?Ah, thanks, fixed.As for the LNG boost pump, like you I noted it wasn't there but don't know why.What if what you pointed out at the PB injector isn't actually it, but is buried downstream that within the gray cast structure? That preburner is inline with the main TP shaft and the pressures at the main discharge doesn't make sense...What if that jacket of cold LOX helps with something...Hmm... I'm thinking a kick pump is integrated into the inlet to the preburner assembly where you point to as the injector. The bolt patterns seem to indicate that there is a part bolted internally. There is already a LOX boost pump labeled, so I don't see any need for one at the inlet of the PB. The PB will have an injector, a short combustion chamber (operating at perhaps 700°F±100) and a turbine to drive the single-shaft main propellant pumps. The apparent PB length is just sufficient to provide space for those items. Sometimes this cycle of engine will have a fuel kick pump (as is the case for the NK-33) but I don't see one in the BE-4 layout.
Quote from: FutureSpaceTourist on 04/20/2018 05:47 amQuoteBlue Origin CEO says next-gen BE-4 rocket engine meets technical requirementsBY ALAN BOYLE on April 19, 2018 at 3:30 pmCOLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — For years, there’s been a big question surrounding the next-generation BE-4 rocket engine that’s being built by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture: Will it be good enough for United Launch Alliance, a crucial prospective customer?Now Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith says the BE-4 has passed all of the technical tests required for ULA to sign onto a production contract.https://www.geekwire.com/2018/blue-origin-ceo-says-next-gen-4-rocket-engine-meets-technical-requirements/So, they did a full-duration, full-pressure burn and got the required stability, thrust, and I_sp?I would think those are the minimum technical requirements.
Quote from: HMXHMX on 04/20/2018 10:10 pmQuote from: Davidthefat on 04/20/2018 07:13 pmQuote from: HMXHMX on 04/20/2018 11:34 amQuote from: Steven Pietrobon on 04/20/2018 05:45 amQuote from: HMXHMX on 04/20/2018 04:45 amSo I did have a few minutes to cobble together some captions. In my haste I may have missed or mislabeled something, so corrections welcome.Great job! Minor nit. The arrow for the LOX High Pressure Discharge in Slide 2 is out of place. I've lightened up the image so that you can see the details better.So where is the LNG boost pump? Is it not needed?Ah, thanks, fixed.As for the LNG boost pump, like you I noted it wasn't there but don't know why.What if what you pointed out at the PB injector isn't actually it, but is buried downstream that within the gray cast structure? That preburner is inline with the main TP shaft and the pressures at the main discharge doesn't make sense...What if that jacket of cold LOX helps with something...Hmm... I'm thinking a kick pump is integrated into the inlet to the preburner assembly where you point to as the injector. The bolt patterns seem to indicate that there is a part bolted internally. There is already a LOX boost pump labeled, so I don't see any need for one at the inlet of the PB. The PB will have an injector, a short combustion chamber (operating at perhaps 700°F±100) and a turbine to drive the single-shaft main propellant pumps. The apparent PB length is just sufficient to provide space for those items. Sometimes this cycle of engine will have a fuel kick pump (as is the case for the NK-33) but I don't see one in the BE-4 layout.I was insinuating that the LOX may be used to keep the methane at a lower temp to help prevent cavitation at the kick pump. Might just be a coincidence in packaging I just threw that idea out there, but it will definitely help keep the walls of the combustor side of the preburner cooler. You'll need a much higher fuel pressure at the PB than at the main chamber as stuff flows from high to low pressures. You need a good pressure difference between the above the turbine (which is kick pump pressure minus the delta p in the PB injector) to below (which is effectively manifold pressure to the main injector) The kick pump I was referring to being embedded in the PB assembly is the fuel kick pump. The fuel going to the regen chambers is main chamber pressure + main injector delta P + delta P in the cooling channels and pipes.
We lack a lot of necessary information, such as planned depth of throttle, and I'm not sure what the nominal Pc is – anyone know?
A few questions about the engine:There seem to be at least 4 different materials, or at least surface finishes - dark grey (lox boost pump), medium grey (fuel valve), light grey (fuel manifold), and shiny. A special material for the pre-burner, turbine, and pre-burner exhaust makes sense, since these need to resist hot oxygen gas. Are the others all different materials, or just different finishes? If different materials, why?
Quote from: LouScheffer on 04/20/2018 10:13 amA few questions about the engine:There seem to be at least 4 different materials, or at least surface finishes - dark grey (lox boost pump), medium grey (fuel valve), light grey (fuel manifold), and shiny. A special material for the pre-burner, turbine, and pre-burner exhaust makes sense, since these need to resist hot oxygen gas. Are the others all different materials, or just different finishes? If different materials, why?You can't infer material type from appearance. Machining or polishing can cause shiny metal appearance, a sandblasted finish would have the medium to light grey appearance. The dark grey could be an after heat treated appearance without any further finishing done to it such as sandblasting.The appearances of the various components could be due to different part requirements/specifications of individual parts along with different manufactures standard practices for finishing of parts.
Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin: key for us in the next few months is continued BE-4 engine testing. Up to 70% thrust, 114-sec duration. #SpaceTechExpo
Still* at 70%, 114s:QuoteAriane Cornell, Blue Origin: key for us in the next few months is continued BE-4 engine testing. Up to 70% thrust, 114-sec duration. #SpaceTechExpohttps://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/998961252184543233* 65%, 114s reported 3/12/18
They might be pump head limited right now and have been waiting for a new iteration of the powerpack to be fabricated while still testing with the older revision.