{"id":19029,"date":"2017-03-20T23:59:36","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T15:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/jeff-bezos-does-a-deep-dive-into-bearings-in-blue-origins-be-4-rocket-engine-update\/"},"modified":"2017-03-20T23:59:36","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T15:59:36","slug":"jeff-bezos-does-a-deep-dive-into-bearings-in-blue-origins-be-4-rocket-engine-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/jeff-bezos-does-a-deep-dive-into-bearings-in-blue-origins-be-4-rocket-engine-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Bezos does a deep dive into bearings in Blue Origin\u2019s BE-4 rocket engine update"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"BE-4
The BE-4 rocket engine\u2019s powerpack is installed on a stand at Blue Origin\u2019s West Texas proving ground for startup transient testing. (Blue Origin Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What\u2019s the difference between ball bearings and hydrostatic bearings? You should have more of an inkling after checking out Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos\u2019 latest update on the development of Blue Origin\u2019s BE-4 rocket engine.<\/p>\n

The engine is undergoing testing for use not only on the New Glenn rocket that Bezos\u2019 space venture is planning, but also on United Launch Alliance\u2019s next-generation Vulcan rocket.<\/p>\n

The BE-4 is designed to provide 550,000 pounds of thrust, propelled by liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas. Bezos says that kind of thrust should be enough to send a payload on the first leg of a trip to the moon when seven of them are firing together.<\/p>\n

But that kind of performance can involve a lot of wear and tear, particularly if you\u2019re using traditional ball and roller bearings. To maximize the engine\u2019s reusability, Blue Origin\u2019s team is taking a different approach. To keep the BE-4 running smoothly, Bezos says the turbine at the heart of the engine\u2019s turbopump will use a thin film of the fluid propellants as its bearings.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BTEhohh6eYk<\/p>\n

Reusability is a key selling point for the BE-4, and ULA will be watching the engine\u2019s performance closely as Blue Origin puts it through full-scale tests over the next several weeks.<\/p>\n

If the BE-4 stumbles, ULA might have to turn to a Plan B, and Blue Origin\u2019s plans for the New Glenn satellite launch business would suffer a heavy blow. But if everything works, that\u2019ll be a big boost for Bezos\u2019 space company, which is also working on a suborbital spaceship powered by the smaller, hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the full text of today\u2019s email update from Bezos:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAlthough the BE-4 turbopump is smaller than your refrigerator, it generates 70,000 horsepower from a turbine running at nearly 19,000 revolutions per minute that pumps cryogenic propellants to pressures just under 5,000 pounds per square inch. To react the forces generated by the rotating turbine and impellers inside the pump, production rocket turbopumps to date have used traditional ball and roller bearings. For BE-4, we\u2019re doing something different \u2013 we\u2019re using hydrostatic bearings.<\/p>\n

\u201cA hydrostatic bearing relies on a fluid film supplied by a high-pressure source to provide support for the shaft and cause it to float without contacting the static structure except at startup and shutdown. The BE-4 main turbopump uses hydrostatic journal bearings for radial support and hydrostatic axial bearings to carry axial thrust. The system is bootstrapped. The high pressure fluid films for the bearings are supplied by the propellants themselves \u2013 liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen \u2013 tapped off from the pump discharge flows.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaterial selection is a critical consideration for this approach, as there is physical contact between the bearing surfaces during the start transient before the fluid film is fully established and during the shutdown transient as the fluid film dissipates. With lab-scale tests and full-scale bearing rig tests using actual pump hardware, we evaluated over 20 material combinations in over a hundred tests, leading to our baseline material and coating choices.<\/p>\n

\u201cExtensive rotordynamic and computational fluid dynamics analyses have shown the feasibility of this design, and recent powerpack tests confirmed that this approach works during the startup and shutdown transients \u2013 the most critical phases. The shaft orbit plot below shows that the turbopump lifts off smoothly and centers during a typical start transient, demonstrating a smooth ride on a film of propellant.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do we go to all this trouble instead of just using traditional bearings? Engine life. We\u2019re relentlessly focused on reusability, and properly designed hydrostatic bearings offer the potential for longer engine life without refurbishment. This is one of the many engineering decisions we\u2019ve made that we hope will lead to reusability \u2013 not just in principle \u2013 but to practical, operational reusability. If \u2018reusability\u2019 requires significant refurbishment, inspection, and re-validation between flights, then it simply won\u2019t lead to the far lower launch costs we need to achieve our vision of millions of people living and working in space.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll keep you up to date as our testing progresses in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cGradatim Ferociter!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Orbit
Finding its bearing: Orbit plot with starting shaft location (red dot) marking each revolution as shaft spirals to its center during propellant fluid film pressurization. (Blue Origin Graphic via Jeff Bezos)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To get Bezos\u2019 updates delivered to your e-mailbox, register on the Blue Origin website.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The BE-4 rocket engine\u2019s powerpack is installed on a stand at Blue Origin\u2019s West Texas proving ground for startup transient testing. (Blue Origin Photo) What\u2019s the difference between ball bearings and hydrostatic bearings? You should have more of an inkling after checking out Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos\u2019 latest update on the development of Blue Origin\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4459,509,1046],"class_list":["post-19029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-be-4-rocket-engine","tag-blue-origin","tag-jeff-bezos"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19029"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}