Modern Engineering for Design of Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines (Progress in Astronautics and Aeronautics)

This book is a fantastic introduction to the design of liquid rocket engines in that it covers every component, from the thrust chamber itself to turbopumps, valves, propellant tanks and control systems. It goes over the relevant theory for each subsystem, and provides guidelines for their design based on NASA's experience. Solved design examples are provided in each section. There are also many engineering drawings from various existing engines that "show how it's done", although I wish they were of better quality. Another gripe is the use of Imperial units, but there's no avoiding that in US aerospace literature. I would strongly recommend the NASA SP-8xxx "Space Vehicle Design Criteria" monographs on chemical propulsion, available for free in PDF format, to go with this book. Although they're not as up-to-date, they go more in-depth and the illustrations are impeccable.

Excellent updated version of NASA's well known SP-125. It's true that other books such as Space Propulsion Analysis and Design and especially Rocket Propulsion Elements can also provide sufficient overviews of the theory behind rocket propulsion, including liquid rocket propulsion. However, what this provides in addition is an exposition of the practical knowledge and everyday details required in turning theoretical rockets from general specifications on paper to practical working implementations. These practical descriptions and tips are supplemented by the many pictures scattered throughout the book which serve to exemplify far more effectively than the illustrations in other rocket propulsion books I have read. My only complaint about the book is of course that it is in Imperial, rather than SI units. But having to make conversions of equations and constants from this book is a small price to pay for the wealth of in-depth knowledge contained within.

I got this for one of my kids, who was young, and wanted to know why it was difficult to make rockets. For this purpose, the book is great. It shows you several aspects of the design problems. You can see this from the table of contents - it tries very hard to cover as much ground as is sensible. The diffculty for European readers is that the units are all imperial, that is, Gallons, Pounds, feet, inches, and so forth. This makes the numerical details - a sense of scale for what is being discussed - quite inaccesible for most of us over here. It's worth noting that also lead to the downfall of at least one recent space mision to Mars. Remarks like "its not rocket science" can certainly be shown as having a truthful sort of origin by looking at this. To "do" anything with this book, you would absolutely have to develop further and deeply in the following disciplines; 1. Chemistry 2. Metallurgy 3. Thermodynamics 4. Mechanics 5. Experience with CAD, esp. simulation with solid and liquid state systems. 6. Maths 7. Electronics, 8. Reliability... 9. ??? I wonder if any single mind could get round all of these, possibly, but you would be pretty lucky to get the chance nowadays. Education isn't cheap. I don't think, though that there is any harm in wanting to get as close to this as you like. The book is truly wonderful, almost a work of art, and even if jobs in this area are scarce, this has got to be worthwhile. Read this, do the background study, get a degree or two, and you may eventually get into industrial plant design, maybe even medical electronics, aerospace, or something. Why not? The world would be a better place if more people would dream a bit and aspire to do the hard stuff. I am full of admiration for people who did better than I did and are working in these kinds of fields. I'm going to get a few more books in this series, though I have to say, I'm a bit nervous about ordering books with titles including the words "missile propulsion". We live in troubled times.

This will provide a really high level overview of the subjects, and provide a reasonable amount of required math for proof of concepts. I will say it takes a personal extra step to further and master the complexities of individual components. The only con I have is with some of the images. I'm not sure if they can be updated with higher resolution and clearer images. In my opinion they sometimes are just black outlines of a turbo pump, haha. The next edition really needs to update these diagrams and charts.

Very professional, used for continuing education and review.

If you work in the Rocket industry this is a must have in your office desk or home library. Perfect for senior engineering students who are interested in learning and understanding liquid rocket propellant and the challenges that are involved.

i have most of the books on rocket engines that are sold today. i must say that this is the best book about DESIGN of LIQUID ROCKET ENGINES: if you want to design a LRE, this book gives to you a chance. it's QUITE easy to read, taking in consideration that the topic is very complicate. consider that i'm a computer science university student, and i have no problem in understanding it. this book is about DESIGN, LIQUID ROCKET and ENGINES: so if you are interested in general infos about rockets, missile guidance, solid rocket, apollo on moon, illustrated books about missiles and rockets, cold war secrets etc., you are out of the way.i reported this obvious consideration because sometimes "an AMAZONer" buy some engineering book for his 5 years child and, being the son less than a genius, give to the book 1 star because he lost his money OR, since he doesn't read entirely the title of the book, he thinks that the book is something of *erotic*. this book is an improvement of the huzel's "st-125" NASA's book, one of the first book used to introduce rocket design elements to nasa's workers when no textbooks on this topic were available. if you already have the st-125, probably you'll find "some" informations redundant. i have also the st-125. i know that you can find this book for less, but i suggest you to buy "modern engineering.." because st-125 is a '71 pubblication, and its perspective on liquid rockets engines is 35 years old, and 21 years older; in addition, it is a perspective that not consider the progresses of the nineties: after the end of the cold war, american engineers could collect benefits by the disclosing of russian tecnologies, and this changed some trends in aerospace. remember that if you know little about rockets but you have a scientific background, there are better books for you. try first the sutton's "rocket propulsion elements" or "Rocket and Spacecraft Propulsion : Principles, Practice and New Developments" by Martin (but i think the first of the two is better worth the price). i think that the only things that can be improved is the exposition of detailed infos about high pressure rocket engines, that is to say staged combustion cycle rockets. the most powerful (thrust/weight ratio speaking) engines were all closed cycle engines(including space shuttle's SSME,russian moon rocket's nk-33,atlas' rd-180). i'm waiting (if possible) for a newer edition of this book. i'd buy it for sure.

The other reviewers are correct when they say the text is worth the money. However the copy I received had pages that where wrinkled where they formed the spine of the book. The first and last 20 pages or so where effected. It feels as if the stitching was applied while the pages where not completely flat, resulting in a wave in the paper as its attached to the spine. The book cracked as it opened because the pages flexed (oil canned at the spine) as you turned them. Disappointing because it was carefully shrink wrapped when I got it. Of course Amazon quickly replaced it but the next specimen off the publisher assembly line was far worse, all the pages where effected, and in the end it is probably the 'replacement' I will sent back. I still recommend this book, its just that good.

Good

現代の技術の粋を集めて作った液体燃料ロケットは宇宙開発に欠かす事が出来ません。冷戦時代から現代に到るまでしのぎを削る開発競争が繰り広げられてきましたが、近年では、ロシアで原型が開発されたエンジンを米国の会社が改良するという例も徐々に増えつつあります。本書はそのような液体燃料ロケットエンジンについて詳しく書かれています。

Written by engineers from Rockwell International's Rocketdyne division, this book is the most comprehensive of its type. At the start it actually says that it was written with the intention that you could give it to a new engineer, and by the end of the book they would be ready to start assignments on rocket engineering. Unlike other books, such as Rocket Propulsion Elements, this book goes into the specifics of component design, covering just about all components of the engine as comprehensively as possible. It's very easily readable, too. The only problem that I have is that the units are in Imperial, but other than that the book is incredible.

Libro muy técnico y es lo que me esperaba. Ideal para los que se dedican o les gustan los cohetes.