| Propulsion | <img alt="" src="http://webtest.cira.it/PublishingImages/figura_22.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | https://www.cira.it/en/competences/propulsion/Propulsion | Propulsion | <p style="text-align:justify;">The development of Propulsion at CIRA complies with the Aerospace Research Program (PRO.R.A.) which defines the general guidelines in accordance with the ASI, MIUR (national level) and ESA (EU) strategic programs.<br></p><p style="text-align:justify;">The CIRA mission is to achieve skills and knowledge consolidation and development in its own ambit, in order to efficiently meet the large number of scientific and social drivers.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Europe holds an important position in the launcher sector; Italy particularly plays a significant role in the field of small launchers. Italy is actually listed as a major player within the development program of the European Space Agency (ESA) launcher, Vega - designed to launch small payloads (300 to 2,500 kg satellites) into low Earth orbit (LEO).</p><ul style="text-align:justify;"><li><p>During the last Ministerial Conference, the future development strategies for the access to space have been set: the evolution of VEGA has been indicated as mandatory to enhance the European launch capacity. In this scenario, the development of oxygen-methane engines has been confirmed – in the medium/long term- as valid option for the VEGA upper stages</p></li><li><p>In the Space Horizon 2020 Work Program, EU identified several technological drivers for access to space and space transport systems, which also concern propulsion matter: in particular, propellants "green" for the hydrazine replacement, development of innovative materials and processes for future generation engines, electric propulsion for future generation satellites.</p></li><li><p>The HYPROB program, committed to CIRA by the Ministry of Research from 2010 with the aim of developing expertise on hydrocarbon-based propulsion systems (methane) for Space, is confirmed as decisive to make CIRA an excellent structure at European level for the Propulsion, allowing the training of highly qualified personnel and the growth of advanced technological capabilities in-house and in the affiliated companies.</p></li><li><p>At European level, the renewed strong interest for interplanetary travels, in particular in space mission towards Mars, requires the development of propulsion systems capturing energy from the Sun. Such Systems could be quite "conventional" systems as Hall effect engines, or "revolutionary" systems as Solar Plasma or lasers propulsion systems.</p></li><li><p>For the aeronautic transport, European plans indicate as fundamental the development of efficient and green propulsion systems, including electric, hybrid-electric and the Diesel systems. Such guidelines and indications are included the Horizon 2020 Work Program. </p></li><li><p>Another precious guideline for the aeronautical long-term research is the SRIA (Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda) that assigns for 2050 challenging goals to achieve: CO2 reduction of 75%, NOx reduction 90% and perceived noise reduction 65% by 2050, compared to average values of 2000. Such requirements obviously impose large investment in the development of ultra-green and ultra-efficient propulsion systems.</p></li></ul> | <p style="text-align:justify;">The Propulsion Area objectives are:</p><ul style="text-align:justify;"><li><p>to develop the capacity to analyze, design and build liquid rocket or hybrid engines, also through the construction of technological demonstrators;</p></li><li><p>to strengthen the capacity to analyze, design and build electric engines for space propulsion;</p></li><li><p>to acquire enabling technologies for supporting the future space engines design;</p></li><li><p>to develop technologies for the development of innovative airbreathing engines (such as ramjet and scramjets);</p></li><li><p>to increase the capacity for simulation of complex combustion phenomena in solid motors;</p></li><li><p>to design electrochemical power systems with high energy densities for aerospace applications;</p></li><li><p>to analyze and optimize the performance of thermal aircraft engines and hybrid aircraft engines (thermal - electrical;</p></li><li><p>to support the development of new propulsion facilities at CIRA;</p></li><li><p>to perform the feasibilities study of revolutionary systems such as laser and solar plasma propulsion systems. </p></li></ul> | <p style="text-align:justify;">The research themes addressed by the discipline, carried out both within projects/programs both as part of internal initiatives, are numerous:</p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Energy systems for aerospace.</span> In the recent past, the high-altitude and long endurance (HALE) flight has been a priority PRORA goal. It pushed CIRA to face the issue of propulsion based on hydrogen closed-cycle. The research goal, in such a complicated system, was achieving to a very high value of energy density to enable a kind of "continuous flight". After few years, the HALE flight study was abandoned (following the indications of CIRA stakeholder ) and knowledge gained in the energetic system design was focused on the development of electrochemical power system for aeronautics. The new goal became the design, integrate and testing of and electrochemical power system suited for aerospace application with a very high energy density value. Such system will be capable of providing electrical power to all aircraft users including an electric motor coupled with a piston engine.</p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Efficient
& Green Aeroengine.</span> </span>In
this area, CIRA has a long history started in 2000 with involvement in a
project for the development of technological demonstrator of a compression
ignition (Diesel) engine for aviation. Nowadays, the development
of that engine is still in progress
with the application by CIRA of advanced manufactured technologies . In particular, CIRA is designing and manufacturing new con-rods in titanium alloy with additive
manufacturing technique. The goal is improving the characteristics of important
engine parts, increasing resistance and decreasing mass. In accordance with the guidelines suggested by National and European strategic documents, the propulsion discipline at CIRA is going to invest in the hybrid (electric /thermal) engine development.</p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Liquid propellant and hybrid engines for space propulsion.</span> The cryogenic liquid propulsion (LOX / LCH4) and hybrid activities have been developed during the past six years, especially through the HYPROB program. In particular, in this period, design methodologies have been developed, technologies for the realization of ground demonstrators have been acquired, and testing experience has been gained. At the facility AVIO / FAST2 in Colleferro, experimental campaigns on an Heat Sink engine - throttle body designed and entirely made in CIRA- were performed.</p><p style="text-align:justify;"> </p><p style="text-align:justify;">These experimental campaigns have allowed the validation of design tools and the deepening of issues related to the heat exchange and combustion. Currently, a technological demonstrator realization is in progress using innovative manufacturing techniques, such as electro-deposition and brazing with heterogeneous materials. It is a 30 kN class engine fully designed by CIRA.</p><p style="text-align:justify;"> </p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Space Engines design - support activities.</span> The Space Propulsion team has gained expertise in the analysis and design of space engines using both full CFD and 1D tools(i.e. ROCCID for the combustion stability analysis) also in cooperation with academic and industrial partners (i.e. in VECEP and LIPROM projects, ASI JAXA cooperation).</p><p style="text-align:justify;">The design of solid-propellant rocket motor, and particularly for the combustion chamber design, there are issues, such as pressure oscillations estimate, that can be efficiently faced only by means of sophisticated theoretical/numerical methods or scaled tests. These oscillations are very critical issues for the launchers design (Ariane 5 booster i.e. P230, Titan IV SRMU or Space Shuttle RSRM and more recently the VEGA stages). CIRA propulsion space laboratory is developing several methodologies, based on computational fluid dynamics tools and engineering models, just for the studying of such oscillations. </p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Electric Engines for space propulsion.</span> Space Electric propulsion is one of the most interesting technology for enabling interplanetary /interstellar travels and for realizing efficient control of satellite attitude. CIRA is strongly investing in this field with the design and realization, foreseen within the next 3 years, of 2 electric propulsion facilities, MSVC (medium Scale Vacuum Chamber) and LSVC (large Scale Vacum Chamber) . Space Proulsion Team, in this framework, is designing an electric engine (Hall effect thuster engine) to be tested just in MSVC facility. The photo below represents the engine mockup currently under construction.</p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Revolutionary propulsion systems.</span> Design and build propulsion systems for planetary exploration is certainly one of the most important challenges in the current scenarios of space programs. Current propulsion systems, both chemical and electrical, do not allow to have the output speed of the gas sufficiently high to enable missions within the solar system with reasonable timing for the man. It is necessary, therefore, to think to others systems as for example systems that rely on the big speed of solar wind. Another interesting revolutionary propulsion system is based on laser technology useful especially for application related to micro thrust in scientific missions requiring very low but very accurate thrust. Both Propulsion system are characterized by a very low TRL requiring feasibility studies that CIRA is currently performing. </p> | |
