Talk:Turbopump

I suggest this article is rewritten to make clear the relationship of the turbopump to the axial compressor.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_compressor) I would also suggest clarification of the the introductory sentence which says that a turbopump has a driving turbine and a pump on a common shaft. If this is indeed what the word means, then any pump can be used, and there is not much point in discussing the details of the pump that is attached. 194.81.223.66 15:23, 3 August 2007 (UTC)Michael

I also have trouble with the description of how a turbopump works. I'm not an engineer, nor should I need to be in order to read wikipedia. I can't from the description really picture the thing. Damburger 17:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with that, I was trying to figure out what a turbopump is and this article does nothing of the sort, less explain it's development. I good introductory paragraph that can be understood by a general audience would be nice. I will tag the article--Papajohnin (talk) 04:01, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

i added an analogy to a car turbo. hope it helps out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ericg33 (talk • contribs) 03:18, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Emphasis on rocket science

The only useful thing to me in this article is the distinction between turbopump and turbomolecular pump (which users often refer to as a turbopump) right under the title, before the article even starts. I came here to find out about its uses and design challenges, yet the article is so poorly written that I didn't learn anything about those.

I believe that "turbopump" is a term for a turbine-powered compressor (used in many other applications, car superchargers and jet engines are just common examples) for the special use in rocket engines. If this is the case and "turbopump" has no other meaning, then this is what the article should be about.

Also, the first time I heard of this kind of turbopump was Richard Feynman's account of the Challenger disaster, which isn't mentioned here at all, even though the turbopump was, apparently, one of the most difficult to design and troublesome components of the Space Shuttle. MoogX (talk) 12:25, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Turbopumps are propellant pumps for liquid rocket engines. Nothing else. Anything else is a minor lexical or archetypal overlap and is a disambig hatnote to a different article, no more.

Rockets need turbopumps because they (rockets for launch vehicles) use a staggering amount of propellant. These are big pumps. Big pumps need lots of power, so only the gas turbine becomes practical (and there's a useful fuel for it near at hand). Of course this isn't the only way. Small rockets can use tank pressurisation, engines for hybrid aircraft have used the main propulsion gas turbojet engine as a pump motor. Bloodhound SSC (at ground level) is using a racing car piston engine to drive its pump. In general though, big launch-vehicle-sized engines need turbopumps.

Only rocket engines use turbopumps. I'm sure there are some other things, but they're too obscure to think of offhand. Rockets need a staggering amount of propellant.

Turbopumps are difficult to design. Any part of a rocket needs to be ultra-reliable, as even slight surges in pressure tend to cause explosions. Their fluid dynamics is hard because they're at high Reynolds numbers where nothing works quite how you'd like it to and it's very hard to make a test prototype that works in the same range. Materials wise, they're like a turbine (already a hard problem), only right at the limits of achievable performance. So yes, they're difficult.

This is an awful article though. You'd learn more from a copy of Sutton. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:39, 25 November 2015 (UTC)