A turbopump can refer to either of two types of pump. A pump is a mechanical device used to move liquids or gases. ...

Turbomolecular pumps are also called turbopumps and are used to obtain high vacuum. Turbomolecular pumps use a rapidly spinning turbine rotor to push gas from the inlet of the pump towards the exhaust, in order to create or maintain a vacuum. ... The article on the vacuum cleaner is located elsewhere. ...

Another type of turbopump is a pump in which the fluid is moved by the blades of a high-speed turbine. Turbopumps are used with rocket engines to provide pressure for the fuel and oxidizer to be injected into the combustion chamber. In general, a turbopump is used when it is infeasible to use a pressure-fed engine, which requires much stronger tanks to hold the fuel and oxidizer. This article describes only that type of pump. A pump is a mechanical device used to move liquids or gases. ... WWII era steam turbine used for ship propulsion. ... A remote camera captures a close-up view of a Space Shuttle Main Engine during a test firing at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi Spacecraft propulsion is used to change the velocity of spacecraft and artificial satellites, or in short, to provide delta-v. ... Pressure (symbol: p or P) is the measure of the force that acts on a unit area. ... For the workstation, see SGI Fuel. ... The most fundamental reactions in chemistry are the redox processes. ... A combustion chamber is part of an engine in which fuel is burned. ...

Development from 1947 to 1949

The principal engineer for turbopump development was George Bosco. This was a new field for Aerojet, and during the second half of 1947, Bosco and his group learned about the pump work of others and made preliminary design studies. Aerojet representatives visited Ohio State University where Florant was working on hydrogen pumps, and consulted Dietrich Singelmann, a German pump expert at Wright Field. [51] Bosco subsequently used Singelmann's data in designing Aerojet's first hydrogen pump. Aerojet is a major rocket engine manufacturer based primarily in Sacramento, California. ... The Ohio State University (legal name), also known as Ohio State or OSU (not to be confused with Ohio University), is currently the largest state University in the United States. ... General Name, Symbol, Number Hydrogen, H, 1 Chemical series nonmetals Group, Period, Block 1 (IA), 1, s Density, Hardness 0. ...

By mid-1948, Aerojet had selected centrifugal pumps for both liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. They obtained some German radial-vane pumps from the Navy and tested them during the second half of the year.

By the end of 1948, Aerojet had designed, built, and tested a liquid hydrogen pump (15 cm diameter). Initially, it used ball bearings that were run clean and dry, because the low temperature made conventional lubrication impractical. The pump was first operated at low speeds to allow its parts to cool down to operating temperature. When temperature gauges showed that liquid hydrogen had reached the pump, an attempt was made to accelerate from 5000 to 35 000 revolutions per minute. The pump failed and examination of the pieces pointed to a failure of the bearing, as well as the impeller. After some testing, super-precision bearings, lubricated by oil that was atomized and directed by a stream of gaseous nitrogen, were used. On the next run, the bearings worked satisfactorily but the stresses were too great for the brazed impeller and it flew apart. A new one was made by milling from a solid block of aluminum. Time was running out, as the contract had less than six months to go. The next two runs with the new pump were a great disappointment; the instruments showed no significant flow or pressure rise. The problem was traced to the exit diffuser of the pump, which was too small and insufficiently cooled during the cool-down cycle so that it limited the flow. This was corrected by adding vent holes in the pump housing; the vents were opened during cool down and closed when the pump was cold. With this fix, two additional runs were made in March 1949 and both were successful. Flow rate and pressure were found to be in approximate agreement with theoretical predictions. The maximum pressure was 26 atmospheres and the flow was 0.25 kilogram per second. LH2 is an acronym used in the aerospace industry, which stands for Liquid Hydrogen. ...

External link

• Turbopumps for Liquid Rocket Engines (http://www.engineeringatboeing.com/articles/turbopump.jsp) – From Rocketdyne's Engineering Journal of Power Technology