High-frequency instabilities in rocket thrust chambers: an engineering approach

Astrium GmbH, Business Division Launcher Propulsion München 81663, Germany

Abstract

The prediction and prevention of high-frequency (HF) instabilities in rocket engines remain challenging tasks not only for science to understand the ruling processes and to measure, simulate, and model them, but also for industry to find pragmatic ways of combining existing knowledge and experimental experience from laboratory or industrial full-scale tests and applying them systematically already at the early stages of rocket engine development programs. The French-German REST program constitutes a scientific platform aiming at combining both scientific investigation and industrial viewpoint. The concept of Astrium's stability analysis tool STABAN was elaborated in REST and systematically developed and adjusted. It constitutes an engineering approach in the frequency domain enabling quick applicability to any engine hardware. At future REST phases, the main focus will be to validate STABAN against scientific and industrial test data and to classify thrust chambers into instability risk families.