An academic approach to the multidisciplinary development of liquid-oxygen turbopumps for space applications

Since 2015, the Technical University of Munich and the German Aerospace Center have intensified their research on liquid-oxygen turbopumps for space propulsion applications in a joined project. Together, they concentrate on the special challenges concerning the design, construction and operation of parts of turbopumps, as well as the development and validation of tools to interpret and predict the aforementioned. This is accompanied by experimental works on the level of components of the pump, the bearing unit and seals. Alongside this, numerical tools are used which have been developed both commercially and at the Technical University of Munich. The research combines the expertise of several institutes in the fields of space propulsion, applied mechanics, rotordynamics and numerical mechanics in a multidisciplinary approach. The incorporation of student and doctoral theses allows for the investigation of the components of liquid-oxygen turbopumps in a very wide variety. High emphasis is put on the interaction between the turbopump subsystems. The present paper presents the work on each subsystem and the links between them.