Demonstration of a Submerged Cooled Nozzle.

The feasibility of evaporatively cooling refractory throat liners with boiling lithium was demonstrated by test firing a refractory throat liner at 670 psia and 6500F for 60 sec with no erosion. It was determined that throat sizes could be increased approximately 20 by reinforcement rings welded to the coolant side of the throat liner and this design feature was demonstrated in a nozzle test firing. In addition to verification of the lithium pool boiling concept, the test firing verified thermal and stress analyses of complex shapes using tantalum-tungsten T-222. During this program, this material was fully characterized in terms of elevated temperature mechanical and physical properties of both parent and welded material. Spinning and welding procedures were established for forming high quality nozzle components from T-222 and C-103 components. Author