Design Optimization of Liquid Rocket Engine System

초록

The purpose of this study is to develop a program for the design optimization of the liquid rocket engine. The analysis program for the engine system consists of sub-module programs which are able to analyze the components such as the thrust chamber, the turbo-pump, turbines, the gas-generator, valves and pipes. For the optimization, the genetic algorithm has been used to maximize the specific impulse and the thrust-to-weight ratio. The analysis has revealed results with error of 1~2% for the specific impulse and about 5% for the thrust-to-weight ratio, which are acceptable. The Pareto frontier lines for each thrust as optimization results are can be used for estimating optimized performance of liquid rocket engines based on the given thrust for the launch vehicle system design. This program is utilizable as standard data during preliminary design of the liquid rocket engine because it not only analyzes performance based on user inputs, but also suggests the optimized system to satisfy requirements.