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
The shuttle engine turbo machinery indeed has a higher power density, and higher
efficiency than the F-1 pumps. Same guys, a few years smarter, and higher operating
pressures The nasty phenomenah that you were describing has been tagged
"sub-synchronous swirl" and raise holy heck with the vibration levels and the ball
bearings. Current practice is leaning toward so called hydrostatic bearings (very
sophisticated "plain" bearings for higher system rigidty. A humorous side note is tha
fact that the balls in the liquid oxygen pump were being "blued" by heat and
oxidation, and this was called the "black balls" problem (more politically correct?).
The turbo machinery does not operate at a teriffically high rpm, and the turbine
inlet temperatures are modest by gas turbine standards, but the power density, and
unfriendliness of the environment are outrageous.-Vance
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