November 26, 2003

CalState Long Beach Aerspike

The team at Cal State Long Beach who flew an aerospike engine last November have diagnosed the failure, and are going to fly again in early December.

aerospike.bmp The CALVEIN team has completed inspection of the Prospector 2 aerospike engine and has identified the root cause for its suboptimal performance relative to that obtained on the preceding static fire test. Specifically, it appears that the clearance gap between the graphite exit ring and the chamber aft flange was too large, resulting in the ring "settling" slightly upon the application of heat and pressure at start-up. This then opened up an alternative flow path for some of the combustion gases around the outer surface of the ring. That in turn lead to the erosion of part of the aft flange, as evidenced by the asymmetric thrust in flight and the ring itself.

We wish them much luck and success.

Posted by elkaim at November 26, 2003 3:37 PM