Atomization chill-down demonstrator for the next generation cryogenic rocket engines: experiments and first results

This paper describes the results of the cryogenic demonstration of a innovative technique to chill-down the turbopumps of a rocket engine as part of an endeavour to optimize the performance the thermal conditioning phase as long as contributing to the launcher propellant load management to increase the payload capacity. By combining the state-of-the-art ALM metal powder printing for rapid prototyping with the highest heat transfer rates achievable from the boiling impinging two-phase spray cooling we developed, manufactured and tested a fully integrated demonstrator simulating a cryogenic turbopump housing to validate experimentally the performance of the novel chill-down method under representative thermal conditions for the next generation cryogenic rocket engines.