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I laughed when I first saw the word "exhausterator" mentioned, I scratched my head when I saw it the second time, and I came here after the third.

Besides making me feel like maybe technobabble isn't so far off the mark, the "exhausterator" is a very funnily-named component I keep running across in LR101 and H-1 documentation. What the heck is an exhausterator, what does it do, and why did they name it that? My best guess is that it's a ventilator for the turbopump exhaust, but it's clearly not designed to provide film cooling to the nozzle. I also know that LR101 and H-1s had nozzles that terminated in this funky component, so it wasn't film cooling for nozzle extensions either.

Why does the exhausterator exist?

enter image description here

Anton Hengst
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1 Answers1

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I've not heard it called that, it is normally called an 'aspirator'. And yet there it is on your drawing :) Perhaps they crunched up 'exhaust aspirator' into one word?

As quoted in this answer

The aspirator prevented the fuel-rich exhaust gases of the gas generator from recirculating into the missile boat tail during flight. Instead, the gases merged into the engine exhaust plume.

Reference: Stages to Saturn Chapter 4 - The H-1 Engine General Description.

enter image description here

Image source (I added the arrow)

Organic Marble
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    Is this one of those cases where enough people miscalled the name of the part to get its 'unofficial' name on the documentation? – Mast Apr 28 '20 at 12:01
  • Another possibility is that the OP's diagram was originally in English with the terminology "aspirator", then got translated around at least a couple of times, and eventually landed back in English as "exhausterator". – Lee Mosher Apr 28 '20 at 21:23
  • @LeeMosher Maybe, but it sure looks like a classic US 1960s drawing to me. – Organic Marble Apr 28 '20 at 21:24
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    Here's an edited quote from the article http://heroicrelics.org/info/saturn-i-and-ib/saturn-i-ib-turbine-exhaust.html that has the same diagram embedded in it: > However, there was a problem: ... The Saturn's designers settled on a compromise: while the inboard engines would dump their turbine exhaust through the side of the stage's tail unit, the outboard engines would dispose of the exhaust by expelling it through a hollow, open-ended "shell" or aspirator (sometimes called an "exhausterator", especially in the early Saturn documentation) around the base of the thrust chamber. – Lee Mosher Apr 28 '20 at 21:30
  • @LeeMosher that's all covered in the answer linked in the text above. – Organic Marble Apr 28 '20 at 21:32