How Rocket Engines Works – Mechanical Education

Rocket:



Rocket is a type of vehicle which works like a missile to lift the heavyweights and place into required orbit with the help of trust produced by it. there are many works depend on the rocket especially to lift the heavyweight satellites, and to launch the missiles for army purpose at supersonic speed. Rocket has a special future to store fuel and oxygen init, the rocket used to store the liquid oxygen in it due to it does not intake the air from atmosphere.

Rocket uses different types of energy to develop thrust according to the applications, some of the types we have shown here, Chemical rocket,Nuclear Rocket, Solar rockets, Electrical rockets etc.

The function of different rockets using different fuels is different from one over another some are used for short distance and some are used for long distance and some used to develop high thrust and some of them are used to develop low thrust. for short distance and less potential, there are solid propellant rockets in use.

Main parts of rocket:


The following are the main parts of rocket

  • Fuel Tank
  • Oxygen Tank
  • Steam Turbine
  • Pump
  • Valve
  • Injector
  • Nozzle

Fuel Tank:

This is used to store the required amount of fuel in it and supplied when it is required.

Oxygen Tank:

This is used to store the liquid oxygen and supplied to the pump through the steam turbine and enters into the combustion chamber.

Steam Turbine:

This is used to draw the fuel and oxygen from the storage tank to the pump.

Pump:

This is used to supply the mixture of air and fuel into the combustion chamber at the time of the combustion process.

Valve:

This is used to control the flow of air-fuel into the injector.

Injector:

This is used to spray the air-fuel mixture into the combustion chamber.

Combustion chamber:

In this chamber, the air-fuel mixture gets ignited with the help of electric spark and develops the energy to produce a huge thrust which helps to lift the rocket.

Nozzle:

After the completion of the combustion process, the hot gases produced in it discharges through the nozzle into the atmosphere thous produces a thrust and increases the flow speed to reach a supersonic flow. It designed with a well defined structure known as Convergent-divergent type.

Basically, a rocket is a heavyweight vehicle to lift such a huge body opposite to the gravitational force the thrust developed should be very high per unit area. and at the time of combustion process, there is high thermal stress developed in it, to withstand high thermal stress the material should be strong and hard.Huge sounds are developed at the time of operation or discharging of hot gases through the nozzle.

Working of a Rocker:


Rocket consist of two storage tanks one is for fuel and another is for oxygen. when the engine gets started the fuel and oxygen is drawn with the help of two different pumps, these pumps used to draw the fuel and oxygen with the help of the turbine, these turbine gets used to run with the help of hot gases and this hot gas enters into the nozzle along with the exhaust gas after the combustion process. when this fuel enters into the combustion chamber with the help of electric spark the fuel gets burned and produces huge energy which is used to produce the thrust to lift the rocket. after the combustion process, the hot gases used to flow out through the nozzle which helps to accelerate the vehicle.

Especially in rockets nozzle design is very crucial. it is a type of convergent-divergent nozzle with the help of this nozzle the subsonic flow can be converted into a supersonic flow.

This nozzle can be moved/tilted with the help of a precision device, this is used to obtain a required angle of a rocket which is called a Gibble mechanism.

In most of the liquid propellant Rockets uses a solid propellant to lift the rocket because at the time of starting the liquid propellant cannot obtain such a thrust to lift the rocket. after reaching into a certain distance this solid propellant gets removed.

Power of the rocket:

The thrust power of the rocket is defined as the power produced by the engine is called thrust power.

Thrust Power Of The Rocket Engine =(Mass of Fuel flow+ Mass of oxidizer flow)( Jet velocity)(Aircraft Velocity).

At the process of combustion hot gases flows out of the nozzle this may lead to the loss of power.

Thrust power of the engine+ Loss of power = Propulsive power.

Rocket needs a high thermal efficiency to work effectively and this efficiency depends on the power of propulsive rocket system and heat supply.


Rockets use different types of propulsion systems to store required amount of fuel and oxygen init. different types of propulsive devices have different applications some are used for missiles, long range travelling, short range, supersonic speed, heavy weight lifting etc.

There are few types of propulsion systems we mentioned some of them, The main storage system depends on it and some of them are complicated in design and some are less complicated.

Liquid-Propellant and Solid-Propellant.

Liquid propellant divided in to two types,

  • Mono-Propellant and 
  • Bi-Propellant.

Solid-Propellant divided in to three types,

  • Heterogeneous Propellant  
  • Homogeneous Propellant and 
  • Granulated Propellant


Types of Rockets:

Based up on energy created rockets are divided, Depending upon the Fusion and fission reaction nuclear rockets are divieded and depending upon Arc and Magneto plasma electric rocket are divided. on this energy based each of them have different futures to reach an given orbit.

By considering the weight should be lifted, distance that should travel, thrust produced by the rocket, thermal efficiency, speed etc. all this combined factors used to select a required type of rocket to use.

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