Scaling Staged-Combustion Testing
Test Bench Architecture and Cost Analysis for 2 MN Staged-Combustion Engines
J.A. de Lint (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
A. Cervone – Mentor (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
A. Menicucci – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
L.L.A. Vermeersen – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences)
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Abstract
Europe lacks an affordable, readily available facility for routine, full-scale hot-fire testing of high-thrust (2 MN) staged-combustion engines, creating a maturation bottleneck. This thesis examines selected aspects of a sea-level test bench design rather than defining a complete architecture. The focus is on whether the bench can stably and possibly modularly supply the engine, and the economic feasibility of building and operating it in Europe. Requirements are taken from methane-oxygen and hydrogen-oxygen operation across staged-combustion variants such as full-flow, oxidizer-rich, and fuel-rich cycles. First-principles sizing combined with an EcosimPro model using the ESPSS library shows stable fluid delivery under regulated run-tank conditions. A parametric cost model is translated through discounted cash flow into the per-day price needed to break even over a long investment horizon at realistic utilisation. A multi-criteria siting analysis identifies viable European locations, and safety and reliability are assessed through a Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis.