Roscosmos rocket engine developer arms itself with Russian simulation software, getting rid of imported

The leading enterprise in the field of rocket engine building and space power of the State Research Center "Center Keldysh" (part of the state corporation "Roscosmos") became one of the winners of the competitive selection of RFRIT for the provision of grants held in 2022^[1]For the project for 2023-2025. on the introduction and revision of mathematical modeling tools at the enterprises of rocket engine building "Keldysh Center" received state support in the amount of 318.6 million rubles. The project has the status of a particularly significant one. Its total cost is approximately 400 million rubles. In addition to the grant, the Keldysh Center will invest its own funds in it.

To tell about what work will be carried out within the framework of this project, and what tasks the Keldysh Center solves with the help of mathematical modeling, journalists were invited to the enterprise on April 5, 2023.

Keldysh Center is a multidisciplinary parent enterprise of the rocket and space industry for rocket engine building, space power and functional nanomaterials and nanotechnology for space technology "(photo - RFRIT)"

What hundreds of millions of grant rubles go to

Vladimir Koshlakov, general director of the Keldysh Center, said at a meeting with the press that with grant support it is planned to purchase licenses and finalize the Logos software product (CAE - Computer-Aided Engineering software) for industry tasks, which the company already uses in its work. Logos, which is being developed by the Sarov-based RFNC-VNIIEF ( part of the state corporation Rosatom), can import substitution of such foreign modeling and engineering analysis programs as Ansys CFX/Fluent, Ansys Mechanical, MSC Nastran, Dassault Systems FlowSimulation, Matlab.

Also, within the framework of the grant project, it is planned to finalize other products - the environment of dynamic modeling of technical systems SimInTech and programs for automation and optimization of computing processes. pSeven

Most importantly, we want to implement the joint integration of these three software products in a single environment so that we can show their high-quality use, "says Vladimir Koshlakov. - If Logos is a three-dimensional modeling program that is quite "heavy," time-consuming, requiring a lot of machine time, then SimlnTech allows you to use the results of Logos to build convenient, simple solutions for a quick and high-quality assessment of structures, design changes.

The project involves cooperation with Tactical Missile Weapons Corporation, NPO Energomash design bureaus, KBHA and several others.

Vladimir Koshlakov ("photo -" Keldysh Center "")

In the future, the Keldysh Center sees the integration of the results that will be obtained as part of the creation of such complex products with design three-dimensional models for creating digital counterparts of products in general.

Now there is a project in parallel, which is headed by TsNIImash, the head institute of Roscosmos, to implement a PLM system at enterprises of the industry based on the domestic T-FLEX solution. The Keldysh Center expects, as part of its work, to further integrate with the results of the work of TsNIImash. This, among other things, would allow us to develop in the field of creating digital twins and thereby reduce the cost of expensive field tests.

Earlier, the Keldysh Center has already received a grant through RFRIT in the amount of about 84 million rubles. It was intended for the project for 2021-2022. to introduce a virtual modeling system for rocket engines based on the Logos engineering analysis program package. At the same time, the Keldysh Center began to interact with the Logos developer, RFNC-VNIIEF.

As part of this project, the adaptation and refinement of Logos was carried out to meet the needs of the Keldysh Center. Together with RFNC-VNIIEF, 10 product improvements were carried out, and this work gave the company a basis in promoting the concept of creating digital twins of complex systems, said Vladimir Koshlakov.

Now the company uses Logos modules for aerodynamics and hydrodynamics, heat exchange, strength analysis, preparation of calculated data.

RFRIT General Director Alexander Pavlov noted that due to this Logos project, the Keldysh Center was more ready for the situation with the departure of foreign software vendors, which began in 2022.

Based on the results of this work and the experience gained by you, it is important that you, becoming a center of competence, help in the replication of developed, refined solutions to all enterprises of the industry. This is how the Prime Minister determined, especially for particularly significant projects: leading enterprises become functional customers and formulate needs on the basis of what has left the market, which needs to be urgently finalized, including using grant funds. Grant acts as a quick financial instrument, a good "shoulder." You have a very good reserve, so we will ask you both organizationally and methodically to accompany the replication work, "said Alexander Pavlov, referring to the leadership of the Keldysh Center.

Vladimir Koshlakov and Alexander Pavlov on excursions around the enterprise

Self-written software for unique physical processes

The Keldysh Center develops, produces and tests promising samples of various types of rocket engines, space power plants, high-energy beam generators and particle accelerators. Among its developments is the famous RD-180 rocket engine, which for a long time was sold to the Americans^[2]. "The most reliable engine in the world: hundreds of successful flights, launches without comments," said Vladimir Koshlakov, general director of the Keldysh Center.

And currently, among the work of the center is the development and conduct of tests in the field of ion engines for a space nuclear tug.

The Keldysh Center oversees the implementation of research and development in related structures, performs OCD itself and brings them to final implementation in design bureaus - NPO Energomash, KBHA, etc. There are many tasks for which engineering software is required at the enterprise and in its structures, while, given the uniqueness of ongoing developments, some of them are not yet solved in the world.

In the life cycle of the product "Keldysh Center" today it participates mainly in three stages: research, design and operation. As for production, the Keldysh Center can produce small-sized engines - up to 10 tons, on the basis of which it develops all key physical processes.

Having collected a knowledge base from experimental data, empirical data, they are then laid in the form of initial data in all calculation models. In fact, on the basis of this empirical material, the Keldysh Center creates software products and introduces them into design bureaus, and they use them to calculate special physical processes. There is a lot of software of your own, author's development in the Keldysh Center.

Solving complex problems, we always face the fact that not all physical processes are studied to the end, respectively, it is difficult to build an adequate mathematical model of a complex product. Our employees are busy building such models for specific products in the field of rocket technology. Many years of knowledge in the field of studying processes in rocket engines allows us to create software products ourselves, "explains Vladimir Koshlakov.

Among the little-studied questions in rocket engines: for example, when the liquid components of the fuel are mixed, and a fire occurs. Modeling the processes of evaporation of droplets, mixing liquids is a very difficult task. But the Keldysh Center learned to do this. No commercial product will be able to simulate the mixing of fuel components and subsequent combustion, says Vladimir Koshlakov.

When we, about five years ago, with Rosatom, with Sarov, interacted to adapt their Logos to our products, we stumbled on this for a long time until they made a separate module, and this was transferred to it, - said the general director of the Keldysh Center. "It's a unique thing. No one in our country can simulate this, except for us.

A stand with a vacuum chamber for testing, which allows you to simulate the operation of products in conditions close to natural space "(photo - TAdviser)"

Commercial software products, in particular Logos, are most actively used at the design stage. In the case of Logos, separate packages are taken, for example, on hydrodynamics or heat exchange, and supplemented with author's codes of specialists from the Keldysh Center, who clarify the models.

In fact, at the moment we can simulate any physical process that takes place in rocket engines, - notes Vladimir Koshlakov.

Moreover, using such approaches, specialists of the Keldysh Center can identify and understand the causes of abnormal operation of products. As an example, Vladimir Koshlakov cited the case of the nozzle head of the engine of the first stage of the Soyuz launch vehicle. When the decision was made to increase the energy characteristics of the engine, these engines on the test benches began to burn, which represents an abnormal emergency.

According to the results of the work, it turned out that the point is in acoustic vibrations that occur when the pressure increases: vibration led to the destruction of the engine. This problem was solved, the engine works without problems.

Also, the company models and tests elements of turbopump units of liquid engines a lot. Such a unit is the most stressed element of the engine. If you look at the statistics on rocket carrier accidents, then 50% of them occur due to the fault of the engines, and in these 50% half - due to the fault of the turbo pump unit, the general director of the Keldysh Center cited the data. And problems still arise.

The use of additive technologies, which also takes place, requires a miscalculation of the thermal state, the stressed state, for which software products are needed. It requires many calculations and the use of new materials in products, for example, calculations of strength characteristics.

Software products are also actively used for the plasmatron, which allows you to receive flows of high-temperature gases - temperatures up to 5-6 thousand degrees. At such temperatures, it is very difficult to simulate correctly how gas passes into plasma. To simulate the processes of the plasmatron, including its own software is used.

Imported software: no one will share the most interesting

Existing industrial import software can simulate the work of products, but often not with the accuracy with which it is necessary, notes Vladimir Koshlakov. The processes that take place in rocket engines are very fleeting - in the case of emergencies, for example, we are talking about milliseconds, and this is basically very difficult to simulate in commercial packages.

At the same time, foreign organizations, for example, NASA, have software for modeling specific processes in the rocket and space industry. It is being developed by separate teams of scientists.

We have been in contact before, and even now we are in contact with developers abroad. They create their own software products, but they do not publish them anywhere, they do not show their own. What is shown at the conferences is that this is a special development, - said Vladimir Koshlakov in a conversation with TAdviser.

At the entrance to the Keldysh Center. Traditionally, the organization is open for cooperation with other countries "(photo - TAdviser)"

At the moment, there is some dependence on imported industrial software in the Keldysh Center, but it is not critical, representatives of the enterprise told TAdviser.

We do not see any fundamental problem. We solve all the tasks that both the state and other customers set before us, "says Vladimir Koshlakov.

In the field of CAE solutions, in particular, dependence on imported software is minimal. For a long time, in this direction, the Keldysh Center relied on its own developments, but then they decided to connect commercial software by choosing Logos.

For several years now, we have been actively switching to Russian commercial software products, "says the general director of the Keldysh Center. "The farthest we've come is with Logos. As a result of our joint work with Sarov, we are aimed at creating digital twins based on the platform created by the Logos developers, with the inclusion of individual copyright elements that we are developing and which are necessary for specific consumers in the form of design bureaus or other enterprises developing some products.

In terms of CAD (Computer-aided design), foreign software is still used, software but within the framework of the project to implement Russian software T-FLEX , it is planned to gradually replace imported software in this class of systems, TAdviser was told in the Keldysh Center.

If we talk about specific import solutions at the Keldysh Center, designers, for example, used Ansys products. But the licenses have not been renewed recently, and since 2022 this has already become impossible to do. There were quite a lot of licenses for SolidWorks - both calculators and designers used this software. It is also abandoned.

See also

Roscosmos rocket engine developers need computing resources and Russian software. Project price - 400 million rubles

The manufacturer of the launch vehicles "JSC «Proton»" and "Angara" started the transition from Siemens to Russian engineering software

Industrial Competence Centers (ICC)

Grants for development and implementation of IT solutions in Russia

Notes