At Omsk State Technical University, a way has been devised to make the spent stages of Soyuz-2 carrier rockets more environmentally friendly. One of the main problems is the unspent residue of liquid fuel – primarily hydrogen peroxide, which is used to operate the gas generator of the rocket engine on the side booster of the rocket. The fuel can not only harm the environment if it gets onto the earth's surface, but also cause fires at the sites where rocket debris falls.
It is known that in 70% of cases, fires occur when the side boosters of Soyuz-2 carrier rockets fall due to spillage of unspent fuel residue. After the spent side booster of the rocket falls and the toroidal tank depressurizes, liquid hydrogen peroxide residue spills and interacts with the elements of the side booster's structure, leading to an exothermic decomposition reaction of the liquid hydrogen peroxide residue.
Trushlyakov and his colleagues Vladislav Urbansky and Ural Abdrakhimov, with the support of the Russian Science Foundation, have developed a method for "passivating" liquid hydrogen peroxide residue by displacing it through an additional valve and a special drain line using residual pressurization pressure. The effectiveness of this method has already been successfully verified through mathematical modeling in the Ansys Fluent software product.
The process is initiated after the rocket separates from the central block and begins to rotate in the passive section of the trajectory. When the side booster rotates at an angular velocity of 3 radians per second, the liquid hydrogen peroxide residue stably accumulates at the tank's intake device. Estimates have shown that about 90% of the hydrogen peroxide can be effectively removed by residual pressure within 45 seconds. Another 10% of the liquid residue evaporates and freezes as the pressure decreases.
The method developed by Omsk scientists can be used to improve the environmental safety of not only modern but also future carrier rockets under development.
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