SBIR-STTR Award

There is a significant incentive to produce high temperature thrust chambers for bi-propellant engine thrusters. Conventional thrusters have a nominal upper temperature limit of 2400F and a limited operational life span of about ten hours. To keep the thrust chamber wall below this temperature it is necessary to use about 40 percent of the fuel for film cooling of the chamber. Since the propellant is the key life limiting asset for most satellites, a considerable incentive exists to decrease the dependency on propellant use for film cooling. The approach being evaluated to improve engine performance and decrease fuel consumption for cooling is the use of thrust chamber materials capable of withstanding temperatures up to 4000 Fahrenheit. The major effort has been directed towards iridium lined rhenium thrust chambers produced by chemical vapor deposition. The method is expensive, producing an inconsistent product.During the SP-100 Space Reactor Program, AMM personnel aquired considerable expertise in the behavior of refractory metals, particularily rhenium. This included techniques to form and bond rhenium to other metals. This proposal takes advantage of that experience to apply an alternative technique to the fabrication and lining of rhenium thrust chambers using wrought materials for both the chamber and the liner.

Potential Commercial Applications:
Thrust Chambers produced by this technique can be applied to commercial and military satellites for both altitude and attitude control.