Ray,
RE: Your 10/21/2013 comments
You continue to prove my point. You have no idea what was going on in 1970.
Illinois Institute of Technology had nothing to do with The Blue Flame.
Item 1. Wrong! Our project agreement was with the Institute of Gas Technology (IGT). While located on the IIT campus at that time, it was an entirely separate contract research and educational entity focused on natural gas technology.
IGT was the coordinator and manager of the sponsorship funding from 48 member companies of the American Gas Association (AGA). IGT was the holder of the original performance contract between Reaction Dynamics, Inc. and the natural gas industry to build and run The Blue Flame.
Ownership of The Blue Flame reverted to IGT after we failed to meet our contract obligation to complete the car and run it at Bonneville in 1969. Pete and I continued to build and run The Blue Flame under a new agreement with IGT, not as “employees” of IGT, but as Reaction Dynamics, Inc. It was the same project, we just didn’t own the car any more. We were committed to finishing the project and setting the world land speed record. And we did it!
We contracted, as consultants, with two IIT professors as independent contractors; but there was no IIT relationship – ever. Drs. Torda and Uzgiris consulted on their own time, with the advantage of utilizing the technical manpower of several graduate students in their engineering classes.
Item 2. Wrong! While the rocket powerplant was your responsibility with Reaction Dynamics until you abandoned the project, using natural gas (LNG) as the fuel was my idea from the very beginning. After all, my research work as Chief Technologist at IGT was on the ignition mechanism of methane, studying radical and ion reactions, important in the ignition and subsequent combustion of natural gas. My frequent conversations with Dr. Henry Linden, Director of IGT, led to his enthusiastically promoting and leading the land speed record sponsorship drive with AGA and its member companies. Of course I was capable of understanding The Blue Flame rocket engine. Following your departure I continued our consulting relationship with Jim McCormick until we finally set the record.
Item 3. Wrong! Our “scientific evaluation” of the rocket performance at the Bonneville Salt Flats was necessarily empirical. After redesigning and fabricating the new “stage two” LNG injectors we validated the theoretical LNG thrust boost from 12,400 lbf to 14,700 lbf (+18.5%) with standing start test runs (#10 and #12) of 447 mph and 557 mph (+15%). Not bad for the first in a series of tuning tests, ultimately resulting in a new world land speed record on our first attempt.
The earlier film frame photo was from the #12 test run. There was some LNG still burning in the exhaust at that point, but we continued to tune the rocket until our final success on runs #23 and #24. Because the film crews left after run #12, we have no film or photo documentation of The Blue Flame’s later runs.
Item 4. Wrong! Jim McCormick continued throughout the project as our consultant on the rocket system. After the original catalyst pack was severely heat damaged, we collaborated on a different design, silver-plated nickel screens replacing the low melting point silver. I procured the nickel screens, developed the plating process in Milwaukee, and applied the protective samarium oxide ceramic coating at a local heat treating plant. One result of the new catalyst was the ability to survive the higher decomposition temperature with 94% HTP. Regarding the plural pronoun “they” (big deal), it was only to agree with Jim’s use of the plural pronoun “we” in the Engineering Design Services Company July 1970 study on LNG flow at the reduced thrust level, required in 1970.
Flow control orifice? Wrong again! Actually, there are some similarities in the way the original 22,000 lbf rocket LNG plumbing system was designed and natural gas appliances used in the home. In the home, natural gas enters the household gas plumbing system through a pressure regulator; supplying a gas range, gas hot water heater, gas furnace, a gas clothes drier, and other gas appliances on the regulated pressure line. Because numerous gas appliances which require different gas flow rates are being supplied from a common source, each appliance requires a gas flow control orifice to regulate its individual needs.
In The Blue Flame’s original LNG plumbing, the fuel was pressurized with helium in the LNG tank, a blow-down system, also a common source, then split into two delivery lines, one to the stage two injectors, the other to the stage three injectors. The flow control orifice controlled the much lower flow rate to the stage two injectors (see page 207 diagram). When the stage three injectors were blocked off for the lower thrust level in 1970, the flow to the stage two injectors was simply controlled directly by the helium pressure regulator. No flow control orifice was required to proportion the flow rate in 1970. Jim and I discussed this when we detuned the rocket to 14,700 lbf, and he recommended using only the stage two (starting system) alone.
BTW – the rocket system flow diagrams, on pages 207 and 210, for the stage two LNG plumbing is wrong, also. It won’t work. You show the stage two LNG feed line drawing from the LNG tank ullage headspace. Nothing there but helium gas. Sort of like your conclusion on the orifice.
