Solving new problems of rocket space stage control calls for improving rocked engine thrust vector control actuators in order to reduce energy consumption for control, simplify their design, and improve their dynamic performance and reliability. As a result of previous studies, in which the authors of this work took part, a new bifunctional thrust vector control system based on a combination of a mechanical and a gas-dynamic thrust vector control system was proposed and substantiated. That solution on thrust vector control improvement made it possible to realize the advantages of the constituent subsystems, while eliminating their disadvantages. This paper focuses on the drawback of the new concept of thrust vector control, which consists in the need for heavy-mass drives to rotate engine components. The paper presents and substantiates a new solution on eliminating the above drawback by transferring the function of the rotary drives to the gas-dynamic system. In doing so, the large force that rotates the engine on the hinge is produced by the gas-dynamic system in a pulsed mode, thus eliminating large energy consumption (during the operation of the gas-dynamic system) for engine rotation. The rocket stage is stabilized by control forces of small amplitude and high frequency produced by the gas-dynamic control system. So the bifunctional thrust vector control system is transformed into a system that is entirely gas-dynamic, except that a hinge joint is used to rotate engine components (in the case under study, the combustion chamber). The elimination of drives reduces the mass of the thrust vector control system, increases its reliability, and allows one to carry out its complete dynamic testing under terrestrial conditions because there is no need to rotate the engine during its operational development. The thrust vector control energy consumption (engine specific impulse loss) of the proposed system does not exceed that of an economy mechanical system (where the trust vector is controlled by engine rotation)..
This paper presents the main results of the investigations conducted at the Department of Power Plant Thermogas Dynamics of the Institute of Technical Mechanics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the State Space Agency of Ukraine over the past five years with the aim to solve some problems involving rocket engine gas flow control. The stability and controllability of a Cyclone-4-type rocket space stage with a large variable mass asymmetry were studied. It was shown that combined thrust vector controls that include a mechanical and a gas-dynamic system make it possible to enlarge the space stage stability region, to improve the controllability characteristics and the reliability of the space stage control system as a whole, to solve the problem of active damping of stage structure lateral vibrations, and to significantly simplify the ground tryout of the engine (with a large nozzle divergence ratio). A bifunctional system of rocket engine thrust vector control was developed. The system separately counteracts the static and dynamic components of disturbing actions on the control object (rocket stage) and provides its motion stability. The mechanical part of the system may be based on the rotation of the engine or thrust-producing parts thereof, and its gas-dynamic part may be based on disturbing the supersonic flow in the engine nozzle with obstacles of various types mounted on the inside wall of the nozzle. Different designs of the gas-dynamic part were substantiated and patented, thus allowing one to choose the optimum alternative at the design stage of a rocket engine thrust vector control system. The new concept of rocket engine thrust vector control was shown to be applicable to different launch vehicle stages, both liquid-propellant and solid-propellant ones.
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