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Purdue University

Writer:
Emil Venere, (765) 494-4709, venere{at}purdue.edu

Sources:
William Anderson, (765) 496-2658, wanderso{at}ecn.purdue.edu
Stephen Heister, (765) 494-5126, heister{at}ecn.purdue.edu
Jay Gore, (765) 494-5340, gore{at}purdue.edu
Scott Meyer, (765) 496-6936, meyerse{at}ecn.purdue.edu
E. Dan Hirleman, (765) 494-5688, hirleman{at}purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews{at}purdue.edu

June 23, 2003

Renovated rocket lab at Purdue is 'national resource'

Part 1 of 2

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Purdue University has completed major
renovations to a one-of-a-kind propulsion facility and has begun
full-scale laboratory testing in research that includes work to
develop engines for NASA's next-generation space shuttle.

Engineers working in the High Pressure Laboratory, one of six
facilities at Purdue's Maurice J. Zucrow Laboratories, will perform
research sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army, other federal agencies
and aerospace companies, said Stephen Heister, a professor in
Purdue's School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

"It's the most comprehensive and most capable university propulsion
facility in which to test engines at higher pressures and thrust
levels," said Heister, who has led efforts to refurbish the lab.

Rocket tests began in June.

"This lab truly will become a national resource because of its scale
and capabilities," said William Anderson, an associate professor of
aeronautics and astronautics. "We will be able to study physical
phenomena on the scale and conditions at which they occur in real
rockets." 

The lab will be an important training ground for a new generation of
engineers, who will be essential for the nation's space industry to
meet its goals, Anderson said.

"It is well recognized that there is a critical need for new grads as
the engineers who began their careers in the '60s retire," he said.
"By the time our students begin their professional careers, they will
already have seen their designs transformed into experimental
hardware and see how their analyses compare to actual results. NASA
and industry realize this, and they have been very supportive of our
efforts to build up this lab, and we are very appreciative of their
support." 

The rocket-testing facility within the High Pressure Lab, built in
1965, had not been upgraded since the mid-1970s. Jay Gore, the
Vincent P. Reilly Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Associate
Dean of Engineering for Research and Entrepreneurship, said in the
interim, other, more modern portions of the lab have been active in
combustion research for turbine engines used in aircraft and power
generation and in work to improve diesel engines for trucks and other
vehicles.

Purdue began rebuilding the lab two years ago, when it received a
$1 million, two-year grant from the Indiana 21st Century Research and
Technology Fund, established by the state to promote high-tech
research and development and to help commercialize university
innovations. That work, which established the lab as the Indiana
Propulsion and Power Center of Excellence, was carried out with help
from the Allison Advanced Development Co. in Indianapolis, a division
of Rolls-Royce Corp.

The renovated lab has already begun attracting research dollars.

"Over those two years that Purdue received $1 million, we brought in
almost $3 million in research money, so we leveraged that money quite
well," said Scott E. Meyer, senior propulsion engineer at the lab.

The high-pressure lab includes two "test cells," blockhouse-like
rooms with 18-inch-thick steel-reinforced concrete walls. Each cell
contains two test beds, meaning four separate tests can be carried
out at the same time. 

One of the cells is for rocket testing. The other is for combustion
research for turbine engines and for work in experimental propulsion
systems such as "pulse-detonation" engines. These engines may lead to
the development of "hypersonic" aircraft that travel several times
the speed of sound. The advanced military and commercial aircraft are
expected not only to travel faster, but also more efficiently and at
lower cost than conventional jets. 

The lab is jointly operated by the School of Mechanical Engineering
and the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Its namesake, Maurice
J. Zucrow, was a Purdue mechanical engineering alumnus who, in 1928,
earned the first doctoral degree in an engineering field granted by
Purdue. His research in rocket propulsion inspired the construction
of the first facility at Zucrow Labs in 1948. Since then, the Zucrow
labs have evolved into a complex of six facilities on a 24-acre site
west of campus, where engineers perform a wide range of
propulsion-related research in rockets, jet engines and other
internal combustion engines. 

"Support from the 21st Century Research and Technology Fund made it
possible to inject new energy into the propulsion and power effort at
Purdue, which is one of our true legacies," said E. Daniel Hirleman,
the William E. and Florence E. Perry Head of the School of Mechanical
Engineering. 

A critical part of the lab is a system that pressurizes the rocket
fuel before feeding it to the test engines -- a step that enables the
facility to simulate the real thing. The Purdue lab is believed to be
the only university facility in the nation capable of firing rockets
with propellant-feed pressures up to 6,000 pounds per square inch and
thrust levels up to 10,000 pounds of force, which are typical
conditions that exist in advanced chemical rocket engines. 

Rockets use special turbopumps to inject fuel at high pressure into
the combustion chamber. In the lab setting, however, it is safer and
more practical to use high-pressure nitrogen to push the fuel into
the engine instead of using the turbopumps. Liquid nitrogen is held
in a 2,400-gallon tank maintained at about minus 300 degrees
Fahrenheit. The nitrogen is vaporized and transferred via metal
tubing to holding tanks at pressures as high as 6,000 pounds per
square inch for use in the experiments. While the engines are running
in the test cells, data are collected by various sensors, and video
cameras record the firing.

Another unusual feature in the lab is a large tank, or "heat
exchanger," in which natural gas heats air to test pulse-detonation
and jet engines. Unlike rockets, jet turbines and pulse-detonation
engines scoop air from the atmosphere in order to burn fuel. In live
flights, the air in such engines is heated to hundreds of degrees. To
simulate those operating conditions, air is artificially heated with
natural gas and then fed into the test cell. 

"I think we are well positioned to really contribute to a lot of the
high-speed propulsion systems that are being developed because we
have a large air supply, and we can heat air to simulate high-speed
flight conditions," Heister said. 

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