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About KCCE
KCCE was started in 1992 as a sole proprietorship specializing in combined cycle aerospace propulsion systems with emphasis on modeling of the Air Turbo Rocket (ATR) system. In 1997, KCCE began to expand into other aspects of aerospace propulsion including modeling of advanced bipropellant and other pump fed liquid engines, assessment of the state of the art (SOA) in specific rocket propulsion areas, refinement of existing Legacy (usually FORTRAN) computer codes, and providing proposal development support. Dr. Christensen also qualified for a Professional Engineer’s License (No. 029075). The company location is at 10954 Hanley Drive, Rolla, Missouri about 90 minutes from the St Louis Airport.
 KCCE’s major expertise is the development of design and off-design liquid rocket engine power balance codes. Basically these codes are based on the fundamental requirement that the power supplied by the turbines in rocket engine turbopumps must equal the power required by the pumps being driven by those turbines. To complete these power balance calculations, the operating characteristics of virtually every other component in the engine must be known, assumed or calculated. These components include lines, valves, combustion devices (main chambers, preburners, gas generators, etc), pumps, turbines, heat exchangers, nozzles, etc. The important operating characteristics of liquid rocket engines include fluid pressure and temperature, mass and volumetric flow rate, rotation speed, thermodynamic efficiencies, etc.
Dr. Christensen has developed a novel approach to performing power balance calculations for pump fed liquid rocket engines. This innovative approach incorporates two separate concepts: 1) permutation of all assumed parameters to generate a “complete” map of closure errors which are normally minimized in an iterative calculation procedure, and 2) use of interpolation modules which are non-iterative data bases for component(s) and/or portions of the engine. These non-iterative modules are generated by permutation of all assumed parameters that define the major operation and performance parameters of the selected engine component(s) or portions of the engine. The first concept can greatly reduce the complexity, and therefore time and cost, of developing a power balance model. However, it also increases computation time for generating off-design operation predictions which in turn tends to increase time and cost. The second concept compensates for the increased computation time by eliminating some of the iterative calculations, thus tending to reduce computation time and cost. This method is under development by KCCE (see Consulting Experience). Dr. Christensen also develops models of conventional airbreathing engines such as the turbojet and turbofan engines. One example is the dual spool turbojet engine (see schematic).
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