Autophage Engines: Method to Preset Gravity Load of Solid Rockets

Abstract

A retardation effect, which is the decrease of the feed pressure and the thrust of an autophage rocket, is considered. The effect is caused by inertial forces acting on the rocket sliding engine and has an exponential decay pattern. It is proposed to apply the influence of the effect on the rocket thrust as a method of throttling and presetting gravity-load (g-load) behavior. The method consists of providing the rocket with an engine of proper mass and proper retardation capability as determined by a retardation coefficient. It was shown that the preset g-load pattern includes a decay, increase, or constancy as particular cases. To calculate the rocket characteristics by taking into account the retardation effect, several kinds of the sets of equations are proposed for numerical, exact analytical, and dimensionless solutions. The nature and domains of the retardation coefficient are investigated. The general case of the g-load behavior is illustrated with plots. The novelty of the subject does not allow omitting the rocket engineering feasibility and validation with experimental results; however, to make the paper concise, these paragraphs are presented in short just to give overall insight into the subjects. The other problems (such as flight control, strength of structure, mass breakdown, and economical efficiency) will be discussed in future publications.