Bristol Siddeley Gamma

Last updated

Gamma 201
Country of originBritain
Manufacturer Bristol Siddeley
Application1st stage booster
Predecessor Armstrong Siddeley Stentor
Successor Gamma 301
Liquid-fuel engine
PropellantHydrogen peroxide / kerosene
Mixture ratio8:1 (approx.)
Cycle Gas-generator
Configuration
Chamber4, gimballed in opposed pairs
Performance
Thrust, sea-level16,400 lbf (73 kN) [1] [2]
Gamma 301
Black Knight tail.jpg
Black Knight tail showing engines
Application1st stage booster
Predecessor Gamma 201
Successor Gamma 8
Liquid-fuel engine
PropellantHydrogen peroxide / kerosene
Mixture ratio8:1 (approx.)
Cycle Gas-generator
Configuration
Chamber4, gimballed in opposed pairs
Performance
Thrust, sea-level17,000–21,600 [3]  lbf (76–96 kN)-21,000 lbf (93 kN) [4]
Specific impulse 250 seconds (2.5 km/s)
Burn time120 seconds
Gamma 2
Gamma 2 rocket engine on Black Arrow 2nd stage.jpg
Gamma 2 rocket engine, used for the second stage
Application2nd stage
Predecessor Gamma 301
Successor Larch (rocket engine)
Liquid-fuel engine
PropellantHydrogen peroxide / kerosene
Cycle Gas-generator
Configuration
Chamber2, extended
Performance
Thrust, vacuum68.2 kN (15,300 lbf) [5]
Thrust, sea-level64.60 kN (14,520 lbf) [6]
Burn time113 seconds [7]
Gamma 8
Gamma 8 rocket engine on Black Arrow 1st stage.jpg
Gamma 8 rocket engine on Black Arrow 1st stage
Application1st stage booster
Predecessor Gamma 301
Liquid-fuel engine
PropellantHydrogen peroxide / kerosene
Cycle Gas-generator
Configuration
Chamber8, gimballed in pairs
Performance
Thrust, sea-level52,785 lbf (234.80 kN) [8]
Burn time125 seconds

The Armstrong Siddeley, later Bristol SiddeleyGamma was a family of rocket engines used in British rocketry, including the Black Knight and Black Arrow launch vehicles. They burned kerosene fuel and hydrogen peroxide. Their construction was based on a common combustion chamber design, used either singly or in clusters of up to eight.

Contents

They were developed by Armstrong Siddeley in Coventry, which later became Bristol Siddeley in 1959, and finally Rolls-Royce in 1966. [9]

Engine static testing was carried out at High Down Rocket Test Site, near The Needles on the Isle of Wight ( 50°39′38.90″N1°34′38.25″W / 50.6608056°N 1.5772917°W / 50.6608056; -1.5772917 ). [10] [11] (Spadeadam in Cumbria wasn't used for testing until Blue Streak, after Gamma).

Advantages of kerosene / peroxide engines

Use of kerosene / hydrogen peroxide engines has been a particularly British trait in rocket development, there being few comparable engines (such as the LR-40 and AR2) from the US. [12]

The combustion of kerosene with hydrogen peroxide is given by the formula

CH2 + 3H2O2 → CO2 + 4H2O

where CH2 is the approximate formula of kerosene (see RP-1 for a discussion of kerosene rocket fuels). This compares with the combustion of kerosene and liquid oxygen (LOX)

CH2 + 1.5O2 → CO2 + H2O

showing that the exhaust from kerosene / peroxide is predominantly water. This results in a very clean exhaust (second only to cryogenic LO2/LH2) and a distinctive clear flame. [13] The low molecular mass of water also helps to increase rocket thrust performance. [14]

The oxidiser used with Gamma was 85% high-test peroxide (HTP), H2O2. Gamma used a silver-plated on nickel-gauze catalyst to first decompose the peroxide. [15] For higher concentrations of H2O2 another catalyst would have been required, such as platinum. No ignition source was required since the very hot decomposed H2O2 is hypergolic (will spontaneously combust) with kerosene. Due to the high ratio (8:1) of the mass of H2O2 used compared to the kerosene, and also its superior heat characteristics, the H2O2 may also be used to regeneratively cool the engine nozzle before combustion. In closed cycle engines the pre-combustion chamber used to power any pump turbines needs only to decompose H2O2 to provide energy. This gives the efficiency advantages of closed cycle operation, without its usual major engineering problems. The Gamma, being a gas generator cycle engine however did not take advantage of this.

All of these characteristics lead to kerosene / hydrogen peroxide engines being simpler and more reliable to construct than other liquid propellant chemistries. Gamma had a remarkably reliable service record for a rocket engine. Of the 22 Black Knight and 4 Black Arrow launchers, involving 128 Gamma engines, there were no engine failures. [14]

Stentor

The Gamma was adapted [16] as the smaller cruise chamber of the two-chamber Stentor rocket engine produced by Armstrong Siddeley for the Blue Steel stand-off missile. [17]

Gamma 201

Bristol-Siddeley developed this stand-alone four-chamber engine from 1955 to 1957 for the Black Knight test vehicles. [18] Gamma 201 was used for the first twelve Black Knight launches (14 in total), Gamma 301 for most of the later flights. [19]

The initial Black Knight vehicles were single-stage rockets designed to test prototype re-entry heads for the proposed Blue Streak strategic ballistic missile. Testing of the Black Knight began at Woomera, Australia in 1958, but the Blue Streak project was cancelled in 1960. The rockets continued to be tested until 1965, as part of a planned two-stage space launcher, using the Gamma 201 for the first stage until August 1962, when it was replaced by the more powerful Gamma 301. [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]

Gamma 301

This was basically the same as the Gamma 201, but had automatic mixture-ratio control for improved thrust. [31] There were nine initial test firings of the Gamma 301 engine at High Down from 16 April to 31 May 1957, all of which were largely successful. Black Knight launches BK16 and BK18 used the Gamma 301. These two were the beginning of the Project Dazzle high-speed re-entry vehicle trials, where a solid fuel Cuckoo was mounted pointing downwards in the second stage, so as to increase re-entry speeds. Eight Gamma 301 launches were made in total. [19]

Gamma 2 / Double Gamma

A two chamber version of Gamma, used for the second stage of the Black Arrow satellite launch vehicle. As the only Gamma not required to operate at sea level, the nozzles were extended to allow better expansion. [21] [32]

Gamma 8

This was an 8 chamber development of Gamma, used for the first stage of the Black Arrow satellite launch vehicle. Gamma thrust chambers were mounted in pairs radially, each pair on a one-axis tangential gimbal. Collective movement gave roll control, differential movement pitch. [32]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blue Streak (missile)</span> British ballistic missile

The de Havilland Propellers Blue Streak was a British Intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), and later the first stage of the Europa satellite launch vehicle. Blue Streak was cancelled without entering full production.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rocket</span> Vehicle propelled by a reaction gas engine

A rocket is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely from propellant carried within the vehicle; therefore a rocket can fly in the vacuum of space. Rockets work more efficiently in a vacuum and incur a loss of thrust due to the opposing pressure of the atmosphere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hypergolic propellant</span> Type of rocket engine fuel

A hypergolic propellant is a rocket propellant combination used in a rocket engine, whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vostok (rocket family)</span> Series of six manned and unmanned Soviet orbiting spacecraft

Vostok was a family of rockets derived from the Soviet R-7 Semyorka ICBM and was designed for the human spaceflight programme. This family of rockets launched the first artificial satellite and the first crewed spacecraft (Vostok) in human history. It was a subset of the R-7 family of rockets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liquid-propellant rocket</span> Rocket engine that uses liquid fuels and oxidizers

A liquid-propellant rocket or liquid rocket utilizes a rocket engine burning liquid propellants. (Alternate approaches use gaseous or solid propellants.) Liquids are desirable propellants because they have reasonably high density and their combustion products have high specific impulse (Isp). This allows the volume of the propellant tanks to be relatively low.

Black Knight was a British research ballistic missile, originally developed to test and verify the design of a re-entry vehicle for the Blue Streak missile. It is the United Kingdom's first indigenous expendable launch project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Arrow</span> British satellite carrier rocket developed during the 1960s

Black Arrow, officially capitalised BLACK ARROW, was a British satellite expendable launch system.

High-test peroxide (HTP) is a highly concentrated solution of hydrogen peroxide, with the remainder consisting predominantly of water. In contact with a catalyst, it decomposes into a high-temperature mixture of steam and oxygen, with no remaining liquid water. It was used as a propellant of HTP rockets and torpedoes, and has been used for high-performance vernier engines.

The highest specific impulse chemical rockets use liquid propellants. They can consist of a single chemical or a mix of two chemicals, called bipropellants. Bipropellants can further be divided into two categories; hypergolic propellants, which ignite when the fuel and oxidizer make contact, and non-hypergolic propellants which require an ignition source.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Staged combustion cycle</span> Rocket engine operation method

The staged combustion cycle is a power cycle of a bipropellant rocket engine. In the staged combustion cycle, propellant flows through multiple combustion chambers, and is thus combusted in stages. The main advantage relative to other rocket engine power cycles is high fuel efficiency, measured through specific impulse, while its main disadvantage is engineering complexity.

de Havilland Spectre 1950s British aircraft rocket engine

The de Havilland Spectre is a rocket engine that was built by the de Havilland Engine Company in the 1950s. It was one element of the intended mixed power-plant for combination rocket-jet interceptor aircraft of the Royal Air Force, such as the Saunders-Roe SR.177.

RD-270 (Russian: Раке́тный дви́гатель 270, Rocket Engine 270, 8D420) was a single-chamber liquid-bipropellant rocket engine designed by Energomash (USSR) in 1960–1970. It was to be used on the first stages of proposed heavy-lift UR-700 and UR-900 rocket families, as well as on the N1. It has the highest thrust among single-chamber engines of the USSR, 640 metric tons at the surface of Earth. The propellants used are unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4). The chamber pressure was among the highest considered, being about 26 MPa. This was achieved by applying full-flow staged combustion cycle for all the incoming mass of fuel, which is turned into a gas and passes through multiple turbines before being burned in the combustion chamber. This allowed the engine to achieve a specific impulse of 301 s (2.95 km/s) at the Earth's surface.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bristol Siddeley BS.605</span> 1960s British aircraft rocket engine

The Bristol Siddeley BS.605 was a British take off assist rocket engine of the mid-1960s that used hydrogen peroxide and kerosene propellant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chemical Automatics Design Bureau</span> Russian rocket engine manufacturer

Chemical Automatics Design Bureau (CADB), also KB Khimavtomatika, is a Russian design bureau founded by the NKAP in 1941 and led by Semyon Kosberg until his death in 1965. Its origin dates back to a 1940 Moscow carburetor factory, evacuated to Berdsk in 1941, and then relocated to Voronezh city in 1945, where it now operates. Originally designated OKB-296 and tasked to develop fuel equipment for aviation engines, it was redesignated OKB-154 in 1946.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Napier Scorpion</span> 1950s British aircraft rocket engine

The Napier Scorpion series of rocket engines are a family of British liquid-fuelled engines that were developed and manufactured by Napier at the Napier Flight Development Establishment, Luton, in the late 1950s. The Scorpion range were designed and flight tested as boosters to improve aircraft take-off performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armstrong Siddeley Stentor</span> 1950s-60s British missile rocket engine

The Armstrong Siddeley Stentor, latterly Bristol Siddeley BSSt.1 Stentor, was a two-chamber HTP rocket engine used to power the Blue Steel stand-off missile carried by Britain's V bomber force. The high thrust chamber was used for the first 29 seconds, after which it was shut down and a smaller cruise chamber was used for the rest of the powered flight.

de Havilland Sprite 1950s British aircraft rocket engine

The de Havilland Sprite is a British rocket engine that was built by de Havilland in the early-1950s for use in RATO applications. A developed engine with slightly less thrust but a longer burn time was known as the Super Sprite, production ceased in October 1960.

The RD-701 is a liquid-fuel rocket engine developed by Energomash, Russia. It was briefly proposed to propel the reusable MAKS space plane, but the project was cancelled shortly before the end of USSR. The RD-701 is a tripropellant engine that uses a staged combustion cycle with afterburning of oxidizer-rich hot turbine gas. The RD-701 has two modes. Mode 1 uses three components: LOX as an oxidizer and a fuel mixture of RP-1 / LH2 which is used in the lower atmosphere. Mode 2 also uses LOX, with LH2 as fuel in vacuum where atmospheric influence is negligible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RD-214</span> Rocket engine

The RD-214 (GRAU Index 8D59) was a liquid rocket engine, burning AK-27I (a mixture of 73% nitric acid and 27% N2O4 + iodine passivant and TM-185 (a kerosene and gasoline mix) in the gas generator cycle. As was the case with many V-2 influenced engines, the single turbine was driven by steam generated by catalytic decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. It also had four combustion chambers and vector control was achieved by refractory vanes protruding into the nozzle's exhaust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rocketdyne AR2</span> 1950s American aircraft rocket engine

The Rocketdyne AR2, also known by the military designation LR42, was a family of liquid-fuelled rocket engines designed and produced in the United States (US) during the 1950s and 1960s.

References

  1. ↑ "Gamma 201". Astronautix.com. Archived from the original on 13 November 2016. Retrieved 13 November 2016.
  2. ↑ gamma engines rocket department dec 1964
  3. ↑ Gamma engines Bristol siddeley rocket dep 1964
  4. ↑ "Gamma 301". Astronautix.com. Retrieved 13 November 2016.
  5. ↑ "Gamma 2". Astronautix.com. Archived from the original on 13 November 2016. Retrieved 13 November 2016.
  6. ↑ "Gamma 2". Astronautix.com. Archived from the original on 13 November 2016. Retrieved 13 November 2016.
  7. ↑ Black Arrow: Black Arrow, accessdate: 22. Dezember 2023
  8. ↑ "Gamma 8". Astronautix.com. Archived from the original on 13 November 2016. Retrieved 13 November 2016.
  9. ↑ "Rolls-Royce Heritage: Coventry". Archived from the original on 18 May 2008.
  10. ↑ "The High Down Testing Site". www.spaceuk.org. Archived from the original on 16 April 2004.
  11. ↑ "Black Knight Testing at The Needles". Archived from the original on 27 March 2008.
  12. ↑ Hydrogen Peroxide – Optimal For Turbomachinery and Power Applications (PDF). 43rd IAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference & Exhibit. Cincinnati, OH: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. July 2007. Retrieved 4 December 2022.
  13. ↑ "Black Arrow". Nicholas Hill., The "levitation" picture, showing the R3 / Prospero launch lifting off on Gamma's invisibly transparent exhaust plume.
  14. 1 2 Pietrobon, Steven S. (May–June 1999). "High Density Liquid Rocket Boosters for the Space Shuttle" (PDF). Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. 52: 163–168. Bibcode:1999JBIS...52..163P.
  15. ↑ D. Andrews & H. Sunley (July 1990). "The Gamma rocket engines for Black Knight". Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. 43: 301–310.
  16. ↑ Sutton, George Paul (2006). History of liquid propellant rocket engines. Reston, Va: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. ISBN   978-1-56347-649-5.
  17. ↑ "Avro Blue Steel stand-off missile". Archived from the original on 8 February 2004.
  18. ↑ C.N. Hill (2001). A Vertical Empire: The History of the UK Rocket and Space Programme, 1950–1971. Imperial College Press. ISBN   978-1-86094-268-6.
  19. 1 2 "Black Knight Flight Data". www.spaceuk.org. Archived from the original on 16 April 2003.
  20. ↑ "Gamma 201 rocket engine, c. 1957". Science Museum. Archived from the original on 18 March 2010. Retrieved 9 April 2008.
  21. 1 2 "Gamma rocket motor". Archived from the original on 8 May 2008.
  22. ↑ Harlow, John (1993). Alpha, Beta and RTV-1, The Development of Early British Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines. Congress of the International Astronautical Federation (IAA). Graz, Austria.
  23. ↑ Harlow, John (November 1999). Hydrogen Peroxide Engines – Early Work on Thermal Ignition at Westcott. International Hydrogen Peroxide Propulsion Conference, Purdue University. pp. 211–219.
  24. ↑ Andrews, D.; Sunley, H. (July 1990). "The Gamma Rocket Engines for Black Knight". Journal of the British Interplanetary Society . 43 (7): 301–310.
  25. ↑ Andres & Sunley (1990), pp. 283–290.
  26. ↑ Harlow, John (20–24 July 1998). Hydrogen Peroxide – A U.K. Perspective. University of Surrey Symposium on Hydrogen Peroxide.
  27. ↑ Robinson, H. G. R. (July 1990). "Overview of the Black Knight Project: Black Knight, its Genesis". Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. 43 (7): 291–296.
  28. ↑ Scragg, J. (July 1990). "A Contractor's View of the Black Knight Programme". Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. 43 (7): 297–300.
  29. ↑ Harlow, J. (July 1990), "Black Knight Upper Stages", Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 43 (7): 311–316
  30. ↑ Robinson, H. G. R. (July 1990), "Suggested Developments of Black Knight", Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 43 (7): 317–318
  31. ↑ H.W.B. Gordon B.A. & L.W. Parkin MSc (February 1964). A Summary of "Black Knight" Flight Data from 1958 to 1962. UK gov. Original may be found in the Public Record Office, Kew (part of AVIA 6 17362), the on-web link is to a precis by Nicholas Hill. Archived from the original on 25 September 2005. Retrieved 10 April 2008.
  32. 1 2 Douglas Millard (2001). Black Arrow rocket: A History of a Satellite Launch Vehicle and its Engines. London: Science Museum. ISBN   978-1-900747-41-7.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.