NASA STTR 2002 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (SBC):		RESEARCH INSTITUTION (RI):
NAME:	SIERRA ENGINEERING INC.	NAME:	Cal Poly State University Foundation
ADDRESS:	603 E. Robinson Suite 7	ADDRESS:	1 Grand Avenue
CITY:	Dr. Jeffrey Muss	CITY:	San Luis Obispo
STATE/ZIP:	NV   89701 - 4046	STATE/ZIP:	CA   93407 - 0001
PHONE:	( 775 ) 885 - 8483	PHONE:	( 805 ) 756 - 1123

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER(Name,Email):	Dr. Jeffrey Muss , jmuss@sierraengineering.com

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS):
Spatial uniformity within combustion devices, especially circumferential, is extremely important to the reliability and durability of a liquid rocket engine. Conventional combustion diagnostics, e.g. pressure and thrust, characterize global engine behavior, but provide no direct information about thermal and species distributions across the engine. Sierra Engineering has shown that exhaust plume measurements can provide many of these details with sensitivity much greater than conventional diagnostics. We have developed a turn-key infrared emission-absorption spectroscopy system capable of planar measurements across a rocket exhaust plume. Data reduction from this single spectrometer system requires that the flow field be assumed axisymmetric. However, simultaneous measurements from three spectrometers allow complete resolution of non-axisymmetric flow fields. The necessary tomographic data reconstruction techniques are commonly employed in the medical field for CAT-scan analyses. The subject proposal adapts the current Sierra emission-absorption plume diagnostic to a compact fiber-optic system suitable for deployment under realistic rocket test situations. The fiber-optic system enables the integration of three sensor systems into a single test setup, thereby permitting accurate characterization of non-axisymmetric flow fields.

POTENTIAL COMMERCIAL APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS):
The data generated with the instrument is important to rocket engine and gas turbine manufacturers across a range of applications. The DoD plume phenomenology community is intensely interested in both exit plane measurements and their relationship to engine characteristics. The instrument can also be directly applied to gain detailed insight into any combustion phenomena, including industrial boilers to open pool fires.

POTENTIAL NASA APPLICATION(S) (LIMIT 150 WORDS):
The resultant instrument determines the cross-sectional species and temperature distributions at the engine exit, which is closely related to the distributions at both the throat and within the nozzle converging section. It is equally applicable to uni element research-scale and large scale prototype engines. These data are essential to NASA and their engine contractors if Gen2 and Gen3 life and reliability goals are to be achieved. The instrument is also applicable for exhaust flow field characterization of gas turbine engines and solid and hybrid motors. Data collected is essential to validate and improve analysis tools, especially computational fluids dynamics (CFD) models.