RD-270 (russian: Раке́тный дви́гатель 270, Rocket Engine 270, 8D420) was a single-chamber liquid-bipropellant

rocket engine A rocket engine uses stored rocket propellants as the reaction mass for forming a high-speed propulsive jet of fluid, usually high-temperature gas. Rocket engines are reaction engines, producing thrust by ejecting mass rearward, in accorda ...

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

) in 1960–1970. It was to be used on the first stages of proposed heavy-lift

UR-700 The Universal Rocket or ''UR'' family of missiles and carrier rockets is a Russian, previously Soviet rocket family. Intended to allow the same technology to be used in all Soviet rockets, the UR is produced by the Khrunichev State Research and P ...

and UR-900 rocket families, as well as on the N1. It has the highest thrust among single-chamber engines of the

, 640 metric tons at the surface of Earth. The propellants used are

unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH; 1,1-dimethylhydrazine, НДМГ or codenamed Geptil) is a chemical compound with the formula H2NN(CH3)2 that is used as a rocket propellant. It is a colorless liquid, with a sharp, fishy, ammonia-like smell ...

(UDMH) and

nitrogen tetroxide Dinitrogen tetroxide, commonly referred to as nitrogen tetroxide (NTO), and occasionally (usually among ex-USSR/Russia rocket engineers) as amyl, is the chemical compound N2O4. It is a useful reagent in chemical synthesis. It forms an equilibrium ...

(N₂O₄). The chamber pressure was among the highest considered, being about 26 MPa. This was achieved by applying full-flow staged combustion cycle for all the incoming mass of fuel, which is turned into a gas and passes through a couple of turbines before being burned in the combustion chamber. This allowed the engine to achieve a

specific impulse Specific impulse (usually abbreviated ) is a measure of how efficiently a reaction mass engine (a rocket using propellant or a jet engine using fuel) creates thrust. For engines whose reaction mass is only the fuel they carry, specific impulse is ...

of at the Earth's surface. The engine testing was underway when the decision was made to cancel the program. Development was stopped with all other work on corresponding rocket projects on 11 December 1970.

History

The development of RD-270 started on 26 June 1962. Preliminary investigations and development of the engine and its further production were performed under the guidance of

Valentin Glushko Valentin Petrovich Glushko (russian: Валенти́н Петро́вич Глушко́; uk, Валентин Петрович Глушко, Valentyn Petrovych Hlushko; born 2 September 1908 – 10 January 1989) was a Soviet engineer and the ...

and finished in 1967. It became the most powerful engine in the world to date that used high-boiling propellant. During 1967–1969, several test firings were performed with experimental engines that were adapted to work at sea level and had a short nozzle. In total, 27 test firings were performed with 22 engines, three engines were tested twice, and one of them was tested three times. All works stopped later together with corresponding activities on the

project. The RD 270 was also considered for the R-56 rocket (although never formally adopted) until work on the design stopped in June 1964. During development, Glushko studied the use of pentaborane "zip" propellants in a modified RD-270M engine. This would have created immense toxicity problems but increased the specific impulse of the engine by .Astronautix: RD-270
.

Design

The engine throttle range was 95–105%, the thrust vector control range was ±12° (project R-56) and ±8° for

rocket family. The oxidizer-to-fuel ratio was 2.67 and can be changed by up to 7%. To achieve such a high

and pressure in

combustion chamber A combustion chamber is part of an internal combustion engine in which the fuel/air mix is burned. For steam engines, the term has also been used for an extension of the firebox which is used to allow a more complete combustion process. Intern ...

as RD-270 has, two circuits of full-flow staged combustion cycle were applied. The pair of turbines with preburners turns the fuel into the gaseous form and circulates all of the fuel components. One of the turbines uses the fuel-rich gas to power a fuel pump, another one uses the oxidizer-rich gas to power the oxidizer pump. As a result, the main combustion chamber (MCC) burns only generator gas. The engine controller regulates the functions of the two independent fuel and oxidizer circuits. With the purpose to cool ''MCC'' it has layered wall structure with four internal belts of slots. Some parts of nozzles are covered by

zirconium dioxide Zirconium dioxide (), sometimes known as zirconia (not to be confused with zircon), is a white crystalline oxide of zirconium. Its most naturally occurring form, with a monoclinic crystalline structure, is the mineral baddeleyite. A dopant stabi ...

for thermal protection.

References

External links

Article title
{{Rocket engines Rocket engines of the Soviet Union Rocket engines using hypergolic propellant Rocket engines using full flow staged combustion cycle Energomash rocket engines

History

Design

See also

References

External links