presentation on piston less pump

1. By
DEEPAK KUMAR VISHWAKARMA (1721298049)
Branch: Mechanical Engineering-1
Academic Year:2020-2021
GIFT 1
PISTONLESS PUMP
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2. ABSTRACT
Piston less pump for rocket has been proved to be the most economical than piston
pump or turbo pump. In piston less pumps, piston is absent. It has very much less
rotating parts than that of piston pumps or turbo pumps. So, it has less friction
losses and there by it helps to improve the efficiency of the engine considerably .
They can be easily installed in the rocket than turbo pumps.Also,it reduces the
weight of rocket.
pumps are 80-90% economical than that of piston pump or turbo pumps. Nasa has
manufactured such kind of pump and tested it actually, and they found it works
conveniently
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3. CONTENTS
Sl. No Description Slide no
1 Introduction 4
2 Literature review 5
3 Brief history 6
4 Basic concept 7-8
5 Applications 9-10
6 Performance validation 11
7 Installation figure 12
8 Working model & Flow and pressure analysis 13-14
9 Pros and cons 15-16
10 conclusion 17
11 reference 18
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4. INTRODUCTION
• NASA have developed a Low cost rocket fuel pump which has Comparable
performance to turbo pump at 80-90% lower cost.
• Perhaps the most difficult barrier to entry in the liquid rocket business is the turbo
pump. A turbo pump design requires a large engineering effort and is expensive to
mfg. and test.
• Starting a turbo pump fed rocket engine is a complex process, requiring a careful of
many valves and subsystems.
• In fact ,Beal aerospace tried to avoid the issue entirely by building a huge pressure
feed booster. Their booster never flew, but the engineering behind it was sound and
,if they had a low cost pump at their disposal ,they might be competing against
Boeing.
• This pump saves up to 90% of the mass of the tanks as compared to a pressure fed
system. This pump has really proved to be a boon for rockets .
• By this pump the rocket does not have to carry heavy load and can travelwith very
high speed.
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5. LITERATURE REVIEW
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R.H.Boden.:[1] has explained “The propulsion of all rockets, jet engines, deflating
balloons, and even squids and octopuses is explained by the same physical
principle: Newton's third law of motion. Matter is forcefully ejected from a system,
producing an equal and opposite reaction on what remains,”
Philip Hill,.:[2] has explained that “Rocket Thermodynamics. A thorough
understanding of thermodynamics is not a necessary requirement for the study of
rocketry. As long as the temperature, molecular weight, of specific heat ratio of the
exhaust products is known, the rocket equations can be solved” Concepts, held in
June 1999 at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama.
Subsequent consultation and review of the document with the participants was
made prior to publication to clarify technical data and ensure overall consensus on
the content of this publication.

6. BRIEF HISTORY
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The turbo pumps used in rocket are very heavy, containing many rotating parts by which
there are more frictional losses which more consumption of fuel there by decreasing the
efficiency of the engine .Also, the maintainenace of such pump is, very important factor
since the rocket has to remain stable in the space, is difficult and require complex methods
for it. If this pump gets any fault then its repairance requires long time and also it is avery
hectic task .So, there must be such a device which overcomes all the drawbacks of the turbo
pump as above. The piston less pump is the solution for the problems faced by using
Turbo pumps. They have only a drawback that they supply fuel with less pressure as
compared to turbo pumps.

7. BASIC CONCEPT
• Rocket engines requires a tremendous amount of fuel high at high pressure .Often
the pump costs more than the thrust chamber
• One way to supply fuel is to use the expensive turbo pump mentioned above,
another way is to pressurize fuel tank.
• Pressurizing a large fuel tank requires a heavy , expensive tank. However suppose
instead of pressurizing entire tank, the main tank is drained into a small pump
chamber which is then pressurized.
• To achieve steady flow, the pump system consists of two pump chambers such that
each one supplies fuel for ½ of each cycle.
• The pump is powered by pressurized gas which acts directly on fluid. For each half
of the pump system, a chamber is filled from the main tank under low pressure and
at a high flow rate, then the chamber is pressurized, and then the fluid is delivered
to the engine at a moderate flow rate under high pressure. The chamber is then
vented and cycle repeats.
• The system is designed so that the inlet flow rate is higher than the outlet flow rate.
This allows time for one chamber to be vented , refilled and pressurized while the
other is being emptied.A bread board pump has been tested and it works great .A
high version has been designed and built and is pumping at 20 gpm and 550psi.
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8. 8/28/2020 GIFT 8
As shown in the above diagram , two
cylinders are there , filled with the fuel
from the main tank. This main tank is
emptied in these two cylinders, these
cylinders are pressurized by the high
pressure tank, as shown. The high pressure
tank pressurizes one cylinder of high
pressure, as shown as soon as the cylinder
is emptied , it is vented, again it gets filled
up from the main tank. The same cycle
repeats for the second cylinder. the cycle is
such that, fuel is supplied by the cylinder
one by one.ie. Each cylinder supplies fuel
for each half cycle. As one cylinder
supplies the fuel other has enough time to
refill.

9. APPLICATIONS
• NASA has a need for high power propulsion to land and spacecraft on the moons of
Jupitor and beyond this pump would allow these missions to go forward due to
lower weight of the fuel tanks. For example, to land on Europa with a hydrazine
monopropellant rocket , pump fed design would save 80% of the tank weight
compared to a pump fed design
• Further weight savings could be achieved by heating the pressurant gas more,
because the pressurant would not be in contact with the propellant for more than a
few seconds . In addition ,the chamber could be increased , saving engine weight
and improving performance.
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DEEP SPACE PROPULSION:-

10. X PRIZE VEHICLE FUEL PUMP APPLICATION:-
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• For X-prize competitors, the fuel pump will reduce the cost and increase the safety
and reliability of their amateur manned vehicles. Sitting on top of tons of rocket
fuel is dangerous enough siting on top if tons of rocket fuel at high pressure is even
more so.
• Many of the competitors plan to use Hydrogen Peroxide(HTP) and jet fuel to power
their rockets. When the pump is used to pump HTP, it can decompose some of the
fuel in a gas generator to run the pump.
• This saves a considerable amount of weight pressurant and main tankage. In
addition , the factor on the low pressure tanks will be similar to the cost of the high
pressure tanks alone.

11. PERFORMANCE VALIDATION:
• A calculation of the weight of this type of pump shows that the power to weight
ratio would be dominated by the pressure chamber and that it would be of the order
of 8-12 hp per lb., for a 5 second cycle using a composite chamber.
• This performance is similar to state of the art gas-generator turbo pump
technology. (The F1 turbo pump on the Saturn V put out 20 hp/lb) This pump could
be run until dry, so it would achieve better residual propellant scavenging than a
turbo pump.
• This system would require a supply of gaseous or liquid Helium which would be
heated by a heat exchanger mounted on the combustion chamber before it was used
to pressurize the fuel, as in the Ariane rocket..
• The volume of gas required would be equivalent to a standard pressure fed design,
with a small additional amount to account for ullage in the pump chambers. The
rocket engine itself could be a primarily ablative design, as in the NASA Fastrac,
scorpious rocket or in recent rocket engine tests
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12. INSTALLATION FIGURE
• A proof of concept model of the pump has been constructed out of clear plastic and
tested at low pressure. The results of the test are shown below. The pressure and
flow are quite steady. The pump system is run with a Lab view based computer
program. There are two floats which are used to monitor the level in each pump
chamber and each chamber uses a two solenoid valves, one to pressurize source and
on to vent the chamber.
• The installation figure of the piston less pump is shown in the above figure. The
high pressure cylinder used for pressurizing fuel, is installed at the bottom of the
rocket, shown in green colour in the figure. And above this cylinder further
assembly is mounted as shown in the first diagram. Thus the figure shows that the
installation is very easy as compared to that of the turbo pump.
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13. WORKING MODEL OF ROCKET FUEL PUMP
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The pump shown is equipped with
electronic level sensors and air
cylinder actuated ball valves. The
pump works as predicted and it will be
easy to reconfigure it to pump LOX
and jet fuel.this type of pump will
make rocket propulsion systems much
more reliable and less expensive than
that of the turbo jet pump.

14. FLOW AND PRESSURE DATA FOR ROCKET
FUEL PUMP
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15. PROS
• Nearly all of the hardware in this pump consists of pressure vessels, so the weight is
low.
• There are less than 10 moving parts , and no lubrication issues which might cause
problems with other pumps
• The design and constr. Of this pump is st, forward and no precision parts are
required .
• This device has advantage over std. turbopumps in that the wt. is about the same,
the unit,engg.and test costs are less and the chance for catastrophic failure is less
• The rocket is much safer because the tanks of rocket fuel do not need to be at high
pressure. the pump could be started after being stored for an extended period with
high reliability
• It can be used to replace turbo pumps for rocket booster opn. or it can be used to
replace high pressure tanks for deep space propulsion. It can also be used for
satellite orbit changes and station keeping.
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16. CONS
• They cannot pump to higher pressure than drive gas (area ratio is 1:1)
• They cannot use either a staged combustion or expander cycle.
• A gas generator cycle is also difficult to integrate with the pistonless pump.
• The generated gas must be chemically compatible with both the propellants.
• This gas generator lowers the Ignition start period of the engine.
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17. CONCLUSION
The most significance of property of Piston less pump that makes them different
from that of turbo pump ,is the absence of piston.
This is the most unique technique. In this ,no. of rotating very easy and moreover,
it is light weight than turbo pump So, it has less losses and improves rather
increases efficiency of engine Also, it is much economical than turbo pump.
The only drawback of piston less pump is that, that it cannot supply high pressure
fuel and also it cannot have stage combustion or expander cycle further, it has no
vibrations.
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18. REFERENCE
1. R.H.Boden Theory Of Rocket propulsion
2. Zechosloviky Book Of Rocket Propulsion
3. Philip Hill,Call Peterson Mechanics Of Thermodynamics Of propulsion
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THANK YOU