NewRocket will develop a rocket engine that will use gel fuel, for improved energy capacity and new applications for the engine
Incubit, Elbit's technology incubator in Be'er Sheva, will invest two and a half million shekels in NewRocket, an innovative rocket propulsion project based on Technion technology. The engines that the company will develop will operate on gel fuel. The gel fuel can be stored as a solid but energetic fuel and can be controlled during engine operation similar to liquid fuel. The gel engines allow the use of fuels that are significantly less toxic compared to liquid rocket fuels that exist today, they will have an improved energy capacity (more thrust with less weight) and full control capacity in a way that will open the door to new applications for rocket engines.
In the incubator phase, NewRocket will focus on developing technological samples and testing them in firing tests, and at the same time it will also test a number of first target markets for its products, where one of the goals will be the integration of the engines in aircraft and space systems. The company's technology also has possible uses in Elbit's fields of activity - the company's divisions participated in the technological and business testing of the project and will accompany it in the future as well.
The founders of the company, Zohar Shlagman and Moti Eliashiv said: "We are happy about the investment in the company. We see Elbit as an important partner for the development of the company's products and its exposure to new markets. We found in the incubator a combination of technological understanding and experience in identifying and analyzing customer needs for the purpose of directing the technological and business development processes."
Incubit CEO Ran Bar-Sela said - NewRocket and the entrepreneurs are an excellent example of the type of projects we are looking for - a project based on breakthrough technology, with a very large civilian market and technological applicability to one of Elbit's business lines.
Rocket propulsion is a very old technology, with evidence of the use of solid fuel rockets by the Chinese already about a thousand years ago. Rocket propulsion based on liquid fuel was first tried in the USA in the second half of the twenties. The use of each type of fuel - solid and liquid - has advantages and disadvantages. Engines based on solid fuels are simpler to store and handle but are very limited in the ability to control the operation of the engine.
Engines based on liquid fuels allow better control over the operation of the engine at the cost of technical complication and toxicity of the fuel materials.
4 תגובות
Nowhere linked to the company website?
Miracles:
In solid fuel engines, the combustion material and the oxidizer are pre-mixed, so you just need to ignite and the engine burns until the mixed material runs out. In liquid fuel, and also in gel, the materials need to mix. Just as in a car's gasoline engine, the gasoline must be vaporized in order to have a good combustion, so also in a rocket engine. Combustion then occurs after mixing a combustible and an oxidizer, both in a gaseous state. (Even in a normal candle, the flame is of wax that has evaporated from the wick and oxygen from the air).
Now if the gel has a low vapor pressure, in order to increase safety, how will it evaporate? By heating it to a high temperature at which the gel has a high vapor pressure, or heating it until it completely changes to a gaseous state.
Herzl
What did you infer that the gel needs to be heated? Solid fuel engines work without heating.
Interesting - but more question marks than explanations.
So I went to Wikipedia and found that gel fuel is actually a liquid fuel with a low vapor pressure. That means there is not much evaporation and the risk of an uncontrolled explosion decreases. If it was really a gel then it would be more problematic to build pumps to feed the gel to the engine. You also probably need to heat the fuel so that it vaporizes in the engine (or heat it until it actually vaporizes), because otherwise there will be no combustion or very partial combustion. But this is an acceptable operation in a liquid fuel rocket engine that is absolutely necessary to cool the engine.