Nonlinear control of a reusable rocket engine for life extension

This paper presents the conceptual development of a life-extending control system where the objective is to achieve high performance and structural durability of the plant. A life-extending controller is designed for a reusable rocket engine via damage mitigation in both the fuel (H₂) and oxidizer (O₂) turbines while achieving high performance for transient responses of the combustion chamber pressure and the O₂/H₂ mixture ratio. The design procedure makes use of a combination of linear and nonlinear controller synthesis techniques and also allows adaptation of the life-extending controller module to augment a conventional performance controller of the rocket engine. The nonlinear aspect of the design is achieved using nonlinear parameter optimization of a prescribed control structure. Fatigue damage in fuel and oxidizer turbine blades is primarily caused by stress cycling during start-up, shutdown, and transient operations of a rocket engine. Fatigue damage in the turbine blades is one of the most serious causes for engine failure