Food scientists are using their expertise to ‘cook up’ new gelled fuels to be used in missiles, space rockets and satellites
MUMBAI MIRROR BUREAU
Engineers and food scientists in the US are teaming up to develop a new type of gelled fuel that has the consistency of orange marmalade. The fuel is designed to improve the safety, performance and range of rockets for space and military applications.
“This is a multidisciplinary project,” said Stephen Heister, the Purdue University professor of aeronautics and astronautics who is leading the five-year, $6.4-million project, funded by the US Army Research Office.
Gels are inherently safer than liquids because they don’t leak, and they would also allow the military to better control rockets than is possible with solid fuels used currently. Motors running on gelled fuels could be throttled up and down, and controlled more precisely than conventional rockets that use solid propellants, Heister said.
“You can turn the engine on and off, you can coast, go fast or slow,” he said. “You have much greater control, which means more range for missiles. The gelled propellants also tend to have a little more energy than the solid propellants.”
Gelled fuels could also be used in thrusters to position satellites and on NASA space missions.
FOOD SCIENCE?
The team includes researchers from mechanical engineering, aeronautics and astronautics, food science, and agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue – as well as boffins from Iowa State University and University of Massachusetts.
The project will primarily tap the expertise of food scientists and food engineers, who are accustomed to working with gels, said Carlos Corvalan, an associate professor of food science.
“Gels are more complex than ordinary solids and fluids,” Corvalan said. “Fluids are characterised by viscosity, and solids are characterised by elasticity. Because gels share properties of both solids and fluids, they possess viscoelastic properties, or a combination of both.”
Food science and agricultural engineering researchers will study these viscoelastic properties and create simulations describing how the gels behave.
Rockets in the future could require that gelled propellants be sprayed by fuel injectors into a motor’s combustion chamber at rates of thousands of kilograms per second.
Using the gelled propellants, however, will require a thorough knowledge of how the fuel breaks into droplets as it is being sprayed into the chamber.
LIKE ORANGE MARMALADE...
Purdue faculty members and graduate students at the university’s Department of Food Science and in the School of Agricultural and Biological Engineering are conducting experiments aimed at developing a comprehensive spray model that describes the precise behaviour of propellant droplets in a rocket motor.
One aim is to be able to consistently create the relatively small, uniform droplets that would be needed for rocket propulsion. Food scientists are familiar with processes used to create droplets in foods.
“The texture of those foods is closely associated with the average size and range of sizes of droplets,” said Osvaldo Campanella, a professor of agricultural and biological engineering. “In a combustion chamber, you also want to control droplet size to precisely control combustion. You want uniform combustion, and for that you need controlled drop size.”
Researchers will first work with water-based gels that simulate fuels and will eventually conduct experiments using actual propellants.
“It’s kind of like orange marmalade without the rind,” Heister said. “We are going to make this gel and push it through holes and study how it flows and how big the drops are. Eventually we’ll study the real gelled fuels, which can be quite hazardous and reactive, so we will use them in small quantities and under tightly controlled conditions.”
Information from experiments and modelling will then be used to design new-age gel fuels and systems that have improved combustion.
“This is a multidisciplinary project,” said Stephen Heister, the Purdue University professor of aeronautics and astronautics who is leading the five-year, $6.4-million project, funded by the US Army Research Office.
Gels are inherently safer than liquids because they don’t leak, and they would also allow the military to better control rockets than is possible with solid fuels used currently. Motors running on gelled fuels could be throttled up and down, and controlled more precisely than conventional rockets that use solid propellants, Heister said.
“You can turn the engine on and off, you can coast, go fast or slow,” he said. “You have much greater control, which means more range for missiles. The gelled propellants also tend to have a little more energy than the solid propellants.”
Gelled fuels could also be used in thrusters to position satellites and on NASA space missions.
FOOD SCIENCE?
The team includes researchers from mechanical engineering, aeronautics and astronautics, food science, and agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue – as well as boffins from Iowa State University and University of Massachusetts.
The project will primarily tap the expertise of food scientists and food engineers, who are accustomed to working with gels, said Carlos Corvalan, an associate professor of food science.
“Gels are more complex than ordinary solids and fluids,” Corvalan said. “Fluids are characterised by viscosity, and solids are characterised by elasticity. Because gels share properties of both solids and fluids, they possess viscoelastic properties, or a combination of both.”
Food science and agricultural engineering researchers will study these viscoelastic properties and create simulations describing how the gels behave.
Rockets in the future could require that gelled propellants be sprayed by fuel injectors into a motor’s combustion chamber at rates of thousands of kilograms per second.
Using the gelled propellants, however, will require a thorough knowledge of how the fuel breaks into droplets as it is being sprayed into the chamber.
LIKE ORANGE MARMALADE...
Purdue faculty members and graduate students at the university’s Department of Food Science and in the School of Agricultural and Biological Engineering are conducting experiments aimed at developing a comprehensive spray model that describes the precise behaviour of propellant droplets in a rocket motor.
One aim is to be able to consistently create the relatively small, uniform droplets that would be needed for rocket propulsion. Food scientists are familiar with processes used to create droplets in foods.
“The texture of those foods is closely associated with the average size and range of sizes of droplets,” said Osvaldo Campanella, a professor of agricultural and biological engineering. “In a combustion chamber, you also want to control droplet size to precisely control combustion. You want uniform combustion, and for that you need controlled drop size.”
Researchers will first work with water-based gels that simulate fuels and will eventually conduct experiments using actual propellants.
“It’s kind of like orange marmalade without the rind,” Heister said. “We are going to make this gel and push it through holes and study how it flows and how big the drops are. Eventually we’ll study the real gelled fuels, which can be quite hazardous and reactive, so we will use them in small quantities and under tightly controlled conditions.”
Information from experiments and modelling will then be used to design new-age gel fuels and systems that have improved combustion.
Purdue researchers (from left) Tim Phillips, Mark James, Timothee Pourpoint and Travis Kubal pose with a new lab apparatus – designed by Pourpoint, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics – that will be used to test gelled rocket fuels. An interdisciplinary team of engineers and food scientists is developing the new fuels to improve the safety, performance and range of rockets for space and military applications
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