The number that grabbed me on a visit to the Air & Space museum was on a
display showing one of the five turbo pumps (fuel) for a Saturn V rocket.
Each one generated 60,000 HP!

Tracy

I used to work with one of the grad students that worked on the bearing/damper
design for the shuttle main engines.   The most serious problem was that they
were so incredibly high horsepower units in such a small size that if the
rotor did even a whiff of oscillation about the stable location in the bearings
(journal bearings) the amount of power that needed to be dissipated to
stabilize the rotor and keep it from destroying itself was huge and if
the rotor wobbled even modest amounts, it could cause serious
damage.   At that time (early to mid 70's) these turbo pumps were by far
the most difficult rotary machines out there.   I'm not sure if they have
been surpassed in power density even 25-30 yrs later.  I think they were
higher power density than even the mighty Saturn V, but perhaps not.

Bill
Long EZ builder & pilot
mechanical engineer

 
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