General principle of turbomachinery: true also for rocket turbopumps?

Thread starter RobertGC
Start date Today, 7:16 PM

Today, 7:16 PM

RobertGC

TL;DR: Discussion of an approach to high reusability of rocket engines.

A rule of thumb of aircraft engineers is every 10% increase in the power level engines are run at corresponds to a 50% decrease in engine lifetime. This is a general phenomenon of turbomachinery. Then it is likely it also holds for rocket turbopumps.

Then quite key is the rule also holds in reverse, every decrease in power level by 10% can result in doubling the lifetime of the engine. Then by running the engine at 0.9^5 = 0.60 power level can result in 2^5 = 32 times longer lifetime. For a rocket engine, this would bring the rocket engine lifetime into the range of jet engines of over a thousand reuses. It is notable as well that rocket engines can commonly be safely run at the reduced thrust level of 60%, i.e., this is within the safe throttlebility range.

So has this been tested in rocket turbopumps?

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