Sound Waves Destroying Rockets

For many years, rocket scientists have attempted to find out what causes the strange phenomenon where rocket engines are being destroyed by mysterious and oscillating waves.
Scientists have thought that these powerful waves were the causes of rocket failure in several U.S. and Russian Rockets.

Now, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology show that this destructive phenomenon is manifested in the form of rotating waves of sound. As the waves rotate faster and faster, its power also increases. The researchers were able to show this because they have developed a liquid rocket engine simulator that helped them to further understand what these waves do.

Ben Zinn, the David S. Lewis Jr. Chair and Regents’ Professor in the Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech says that these phenomenons are very troublesome: “These spinning acoustic oscillations destroy engines without anyone fully understanding how these waves are formed. Visualizing this phenomenon brings us a step closer to understanding it.”

Previously, when such cases of the phenomenon occurred, scientists were able to see the beginning stages but were unable to see the rest due to being forced to shut down the engine in case of serious damage to the engine.
Dr. Oleksandr Bibik, a visiting physicist and research scientist from Ukraine helped the Georgia team and they developed new techniques of viewing the waves with a very high speed camera in combination with a series of fiber optic probes. Bibik used filters to only allow certain light radiation to get to the camera's lens from a low-pressure combustion zone. The fiber optic probes then further collect data on the reaction process oscillations.
They discovered that the waves gained power as it spun around the engine's periphery at a rate of 5,000 revolutions per minute.

Now, scientists hope to use these simulations to help understand more what these waves are. They hope to be able to use these simulations to prevent real situations of engine destruction and to save billions of dollars for technologies that are affected by these mysterious waves.