Department of

Applied Physics
Delhi Technological Project-I Report
on
Nuclear Rocket Engine
 DECLARATION

We hereby certify that the work, which is presented in the Project-I entitled:
Nuclear Rocket Engine in fulfilment of the requirement for the award of the
Degree of Bachelor of Technology in Conputer Engineering and submitted to
the Department of Applied Physics, Delhi Technological University, Delhi is
an authentic record of our own, carried out under the supervision of DR.
GYANPRAKASH SHARMA

The work presented in this report has not been submitted and not under
consideration for the award for any other course/degree of this or any other
Institute/University.
 ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
DELHI TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY
(FORMERLY Delhi College of Engineering)
Bawana Road, Delhi-110042

SUPERVISOR CERTIFICATE

To the best of my knowledge, the report comprises original work and has not
been submitted in part or full for any Course/Degree to this university or
elsewhere as per the candidate’s declaration

Place: Delhi Supervisor name and signature

Date : 10/03/2021
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would like to express our special thanks of gratitude to our Physics

Professor DR. GYANPRAKASH SHARMA (Department of Applied Physics) for his
stable guidance and support in the discipline of Applied Physics and
encouraging us to take up this project. Without his contribution, this
dissertation couldn’t have been possible.

The ideas in the dissertation stem from works and relevant papers.
I would also like to thank people who commented on either of them. We
would also like to extend our deepest gratitude to all those who have
directly and indirectly guided us in writing this project.

In addition, we would like to thank the Department of Applied Physics, Delhi

Technological University for giving us the opportunity to work on this
discipline.
Introduction
A nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) is a type of thermal rocket where the heat from a nuclear
reaction, often nuclear fission, replaces the chemical energy of the propellants in a chemical
rocket. In an NTR, a working fluid, usually liquid hydrogen, is heated to a high temperature in a
nuclear reactor and then expands through a rocket nozzle to create thrust. The external nuclear
heat source theoretically allows a higher effective exhaust velocity and is expected to double or
triple payload capacity compared to chemical propellants that store energy internally.
Nuclear reactors can produce the energy and propulsion needed to rapidly take large spacecraft
to Mars and, if desired, beyond. Crucially, the nuclear engines are meant for interplanetary
travel only, not for use in the Earth’s atmosphere.

History
After World War II, the U.S. military started the development of intercontinental ballistic
missiles based on the German V-2 rocket designs. Some large rockets were designed to carry
nuclear warheads with nuclear-powered propulsion
engines. As early as 1946, secret reports were prepared
for the US Air Force, as part of the NEPA project, by
North American Aviation and Douglas Aircraft
Company's Project Rand. These ground breaking reports
identified a reactor engine in which a working fluid of
low molecular weight is heated using a nuclear reactor
as the most promising form of nuclear propulsion but
identified many technical issues that needed to be
resolved.
In January 1947, not aware of this classified research,
engineers of the Applied Physics Laboratory published
their research on nuclear power propulsion and their
report was eventually classified. In May 1947, American-
educated Chinese scientist Hsue-Shen Tsien presented his research on "thermal jets" powered
by a porous graphite-moderated nuclear reactor at the Nuclear Science and Engineering
Seminars LIV organised by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In 1948 and 1949, physicist Leslie Shepherd and rocket scientist Val Cleaver produced a series of
ground breaking scientific papers that considered how nuclear technology might be applied to
interplanetary travel. The papers examined both nuclear-thermal and nuclear-electric
propulsion.

Traditional Chemical Propulsion

Chemical propulsion is propulsion in which the thrust is provided by the product of a chemical
reaction, usually burning (or oxidizing) a fuel. A chemical reaction combines two or more kinds
of chemicals and makes a different chemical as a product. A commonly used reaction is
combining hydrogen with oxygen to make water.
 The liquid propellant is stored in tanks and fed on demand into a combustion chamber. This can
be done by either only gas pressurization (this is needed anyway to empty the whole propellant
tank) or a pump. Since high temperatures are required for high specific impulses, cooling of the
combustion chamber and the nozzle is very important. Sometimes, the propellant is also stored
in a gaseous state.
However, since the gaseous state requires much more volume (and mass!) than the liquid state,
this is only possible for small engines. Research is even being carried out to further reduce the
volume by using a mixture of solid and liquid fuel- the so called slush.

Working of a Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Rocket

Crucially, the nuclear engines are meant for interplanetary travel only, not for use in the Earth’s
atmosphere. Chemical rockets launch the craft out beyond low Earth orbit. Only then does the
nuclear propulsion system kick in. Nuclear propulsion would be advantageous if we want to go
to Mars and back in under two years. To enable that mission capability a key technology that
needs to be advanced is the fuel.
Specifically, the fuel needs to endure the superhigh temperatures and volatile conditions inside
a nuclear thermal engine.
Nuclear thermal propulsion uses energy released from nuclear reactions to heat liquid hydrogen
to about 2,430 °C—some eight times the temperature of nuclear-power-plant cores. The
propellant expands and jets out the nozzles at tremendous speeds. This can produce twice the
thrust per mass of propellant as compared to that of chemical rockets, allowing nuclear
powered ships to travel longer and faster.

• NTP Systems Are Powered By Fission

NTP systems work by pumping a liquid propellant, most likely hydrogen, through a reactor
core. Uranium atoms split apart inside the core and release heat through fission. This physical
process heats up the propellant and converts it to a gas, which is expanded through a nozzle to
produce thrust.

• NTP Systems Are More Efficient Than Chemical Rockets

NTP rockets are more energy dense than chemical rockets and twice as efficient.
Engineers measure this performance as specific impulse, which is the amount of thrust you can
get from a specific amount of propellant. The specific impulse of a chemical rocket that
 combusts liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen is 450 seconds, exactly half the propellant
efficiency of the initial target for nuclear-powered rockets (900 seconds).
This is because lighter gases are easier to accelerate. When chemical rockets are burned, they
produce water vapor, a much heavier by product than the hydrogen that is used in a NTP
system. This leads to greater efficiency and allows the rocket to travel farther on less fuel.
• NTP Systems Won’t Be Used at Launch
NTP systems won’t be used on Earth. Instead, they’ll be launched into space by chemical
rockets before they are turned on. NTP systems are not designed to produce the amount of
thrust needed to leave the Earth's surface.
• NTP Systems Will Provide Greater Flexibility
NTP systems offer greater flexibility for deep space missions. They can reduce travel times to
Mars by up to 25% and, more importantly, limit a flight crew’s exposure to cosmic radiation.
They can also enable broader launch windows that are not dependent on orbital alignments
and allow astronauts to abort missions and return to Earth if necessary.

• NTP Systems Were Developed with Support From DOE

NTP is not new. It was studied by NASA and the Atomic Energy Commission (now the U.S.
Department of Energy) during the 1960s as part of the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle
Application program. During this time, Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists helped
successfully build and test a number of nuclear rockets that current NTP designs are based off
of today.
Although the program ended in 1972, research continued to improve the basic design,
materials and fuels used for NTP systems.
• NTP Systems Are Focused On Using Low-Enriched Uranium
DOE is working with NASA to help test, develop and assess the feasibility of using new fuels
that require less uranium enrichment for NTP systems. This fuel may be made using new
advanced manufacturing techniques and can potentially help reduce security-related costs
that come with using highly enriched fuel.
Idaho National Laboratory is currently helping NASA develop and test fuel composites at its
Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) facility to examine how they perform under the harsh
temperatures needed for nuclear thermal propulsion.
Types of Nuclear Propulsion
Fission Propulsion
Fission is the act of splitting a heavy atomic nucleus into two lighter ones, which results in a
tremendous release of energy. Common fuels for fission reactions are plutonium and enriched
uranium, a soft-drink sized can of which carries 50 times more energy than the space shuttle's
external tank.

Fission has been used to generate electricity on Earth for six decades, often by using the heat
from the reactor core to boil water and spin a turbine. But a reactor core could also be used to
heat a propellant such as hydrogen into a super hot gas. The gas could then be expelled out of a
nozzle, providing thrust, just like in a conventional chemical rocket. Engines of this type are
called nuclear thermal rockets (NTRs), and were ground-tested by the United States in the
Rover/NERVA program of the 1960s.

A related method, being studied by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
in the early 2000s, would give an NTR the equivalent of a military jet's afterburner. In this
scheme, liquid oxygen could be pumped into the exhaust nozzle. This would cool the hydrogen
enough that it could combine with the oxygen and burn, providing additional thrust and leaving
water vapor as a by-product.

NTRs could produce enough thrust to carry a spacecraft into orbit, but because the propellant
itself would quickly run out, they are unsuitable for longer missions to Mars or beyond. An
alternative approach to NTRs is to use the reactor to produce electricity, which could power
various types of electrical thrusters. Such nuclear-electric propulsion systems (NEPs) would use
electric fields to ionize and/or accelerate propellant gas such as hydrogen, argon, or xenon.
NASA plans to put development of NEPs on a fast track beginning in 2003.

NEPs would be able to produce smaller amounts of continuous thrust over periods of weeks or
months, making them extremely suitable for robotic missions to the outer planets or slow
journeys between Earth orbit and the Moon. For human missions, when diminishing supplies for
the crew make speed a more important factor, a combination of NTRs and NEPs could be used.

Fusion Propulsion
We have nuclear fusion to thank for life on Earth: Most solar energy comes from the four million
tons of hydrogen that is converted into helium every second in the interior of the Sun. But
fusion can only occur in superheated environments measuring in the millions of degrees, when
matter reaches a highly ionized state called plasma. Since plasma is too hot to be contained in
any known material, controlled nuclear fusion remains one of humanity's great unrealized
scientific goals.
However, plasma conducts electricity very well, and it could be possible to use magnetic fields
to contain and accelerate it. It might even be more feasible to use fusion in space, where it
would not be necessary to shield the reactor from the environment in all directions, as it would
be on Earth.

Experiments toward developing a fusion propulsion system are underway at NASA's Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The Gas Dynamic Mirror (GDM) Fusion Propulsion
system would wrap a long, thin current-carrying coil of wire around a tube containing plasma.
The current would create a powerful magnetic field that would trap the plasma in the tube's
center section, while each end of the tube would have special magnetic nozzles through which
the plasma could escape, providing thrust.

The amount and efficiency of the energy released by fusion makes it a good candidate for
interplanetary travel. As a comparison of their efficiency, if a chemical rocket were an average
car, a fusion rocket would get about 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) per liter! Fusion also has
great potential as an energy source because of the nature of the fuel and reaction—hydrogen is
the most common element in the universe, and the by-products are non-radioactive (unlike
fission products, which remain hazardous for many years). But until fusion becomes a reality,
fission is humanity's sole option for nuclear-powered space travel—and is not without strong
opposition.

Engineering Considerations
Temperature and Density
Rocket reactors differ from power plant reactors in two main respects: their temperature and
their power density. In order to beat their chemical competitors, a nuclear rocket must operate
at very high temperatures. At the same time, it must be extremely light and compact, so as not
to weigh down the spacecraft it is launching. These requirements pose a unique set of
challenges that the rocket scientist must address when designing the reactor.

Fig.: Cross-sectional view of fuel

elements for the experimental NERVA
reactor. Courtesy of NASA.
Obviously, the reactor should be designed to run at the hottest temperature possible, i.e. just
below the melting point of the fuel elements. The fuel of choice is typically highly enriched
uranium carbide, a hard ceramic material that melts at 3100 °K, and the reactor itself is typically
run at 2500–2800 °K. The fuel is dispersed within a matrix of graphite, chosen because it is one
of the few moderators that can withstand the extreme temperatures. (Certain metallic carbides
can also be used as a reactor material, although many are neutron-absorbing and thus
necessitate that the rocket be run as a fast reactor.)

Graphite, however, has one major limitation: at the extreme temperatures involved, it is quickly
corroded by the hydrogen propellant to produce hydrocarbons. This problem can be overcome
(or at least mitigated) by lining the propellant channels with a thin layer of metallic carbide, NbC
being used in test reactors in the 1960's. The carbide slows, but does not stop, the corrosion,
allowing test reactors to run for as long as 100 minutes.
Compactness mandates that the reactor run at a power density far above that of a power plant.
During America's nuclear rocket program, the record average power density was set by the
Pewee reactor (2.34 GW/m3), and some more advanced reactor concepts work at upwards of 40
GW/m3. To maximize the power density, one uses highly enriched uranium fuel and surrounds
the reactor with a neutron reflector.

Radiation and Safety

While the rocket is designed to avoid radioactive leakage products, inevitably a small amount of
radioactive waste will make it into the rocket's exhaust. This, in addition to the fear of a
Chernobyl-like rocket meltdown, has led many to believe that nuclear rockets should not be
operated in the Earth's atmosphere. Even so, a reactor meltdown was simulated in the KIWI
TNT test in 1965, and the radioactive fallout was not significant. Moreover, the control rods can
be fixed during launch, rendering the nuclear reactor safely subcritical even in the event of a
launch abort.
Protecting the crew from radiation is as important as
preventing a nuclear meltdown. Neutron shielding, which
can weigh several tons, must be installed between the
reactor and the crew, and the distance between the two
should be maximized to take greatest advantage of the
fact that radiation flux falls off with the square of the
distance. Placing the fuel tanks between the crew and
the rocket is a very effective way to shield the crew, since
hydrogen makes an excellent neutron scatterer.
Paradoxically, a well-shielded nuclear rocket will on the
whole decrease the crew's radiation exposure for long
missions. This is because the nuclear rocket, with its
larger
exhaust velocity, can complete the journey more quickly. Space, not the reactor, is the primary
radiation concern. As Table demonstrates, the key to reducing radiation exposure is to limit
mission time, which is one thing nuclear rockets are particularly well-suited to do.

Radiation Source Chemical Rocket (433 day) Nuclear Rocket

(316 day)

Van Allen Belts 2 rem 2 rem

Mars Surface 1 rem 1 rem

Galactic Radiation 31 rem 22 rem

Solar Flares 26 rem 15 rem

Reactor 0 rem 5 rem

Total 60 rem 45 rem

Table: Radiation Exposure for two comparable mars missions with comparable liftoff
mass and payload mass. The nuclear rocket reduces exposure by taking a shorter trip
with a higher Δv.

Pros and Cons

Plutonium is one of the most poisonous substances known; doses of one millionth of a gram are
carcinogenic, and it is difficult to contain the radioactive by-products of fission safely. These
dangers have made nuclear fission controversial from the outset, and the prospect of a nuclear
reactor re-entering Earth's atmosphere and scattering radioactive material over a wide area
makes many people nervous.

Many space probes have not carried reactors but are powered by radioisotope thermoelectric
generators (RTGs), which derive electrical power from the slow decay of radioactive material.
There was concern in 1997 that the Cassini probe to Saturn might meet with an accident as it
flew by Earth, scattering its RTG's 33 kilograms (72 pounds) of plutonium into the atmosphere.
This did not occur and Cassini continued on its route to Saturn. However, such concerns, along
with the high projected cost of research and construction, have been obstacles in the way of
nuclear-propelled spacecraft.

Still, nuclear propulsion could dramatically decrease travel time to the planets. A round trip to
Mars could be accomplished in half the time with fusion power, which would lessen the crew's
exposure to the hazards of weight-lessness and cosmic radiation. A nuclear-propelled craft
could conceivably be used repeatedly for round trips to the Moon and planets, cutting down the
cost of operating such a long-term transit system.

Learning Outcomes/Results/Conclusions
Nuclear Propulsion (NP) is an outstanding, if not the best propulsion candidate for deep space
human missions to Mars, although future high efficiency solar panels might become a good
competitor. Because of its inherent power density NP is capable of reducing drastically travel
time and thus crew radiation dose, with its known and newly emerging health risks. While there
are still engineering issues to be solved to apply Nuclear Thermal Propulsion to future human
missions, its capability and potential outclass any Chemical Propulsion performance, enabling
faster travel with drastically reduced mass consumption. This last is a very important factor in
planning financially affordable human exploration.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_thermal_rocket

https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/nuclear-powered-rockets-get-
asecond-look-for-travel-to-mars

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/game_changing_development/Nuclear_T
hermal_Propulsion_Deep_Space_Exploration

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph241/hamerly1/

https://www.rocket.com/innovation/nuclear-thermal-propulsion

T. J. Lawrence, "Nuclear-Thermal-Rocket Propulsion Systems", in Nuclear Space Power

and Propulsion Systems, ed. by C. Bruno
 THANK YOU
Department of COMPUTER ENGINEERING B12