Production capabilities

The Production Complex of Voronezh Center of Rocket Engine Building (VC REB) incorporates the following facilities:

• Liquid Rocket Engine (LRE) serial production facility focused on production of commercial engines intended for operation in conditions of serial production launch vehicles;
• LRE experimental production facility for experimental and pilot LRE samples manufacturing within the R&D works;
• civilian product manufacturing for oil & gas production, aircraft production, transport equipment production customers.

The production facilities have machine tooling containing several thousand units, and it is staffed with highly qualified workers and engineers providing the tooling operation, and some shops with day-and-night working arrangement.

The production complex has the following technological areas and production facilities:

• blank production facility;
• metallurgical plant;
• tool-making facility;
• machining facility;
• welding shop, brazing;
• metalwork and assembly shop;
• cold-upsetting facility;
• forging shop;
• foundry shop;
• galvanic shop;
• thermal production facility (annealing, hardening, normalizing);
• hot pressing (granule metallurgy);
• gasostatic processing of casts, coating;
• inspections (geometrical, ultrasonic, metallograpic, fluorescent, dye-penetration, X-Ray);
• metallographic examination of metal structure.

Technological and technical preparation activity is provided at the production facility by a Chief Engineer Service. It contains the divisions and the laboratories of the principle specialists (tooling person, metallurgist, welder), and the instrumentation production facility.

R&D and experimental works performed in laboratories of the principle specialists create the basis for application of the best materials and technologies to provide high engine performances.

The component manufacturing is performed in specialized shops and labs of the plant using tooling certificated for this type of job by the specialists suitably qualified.

Application of original and unique technologies, using the equipment of the best Russian and foreign manufacturers, and mastered programs and approaches using extra devices and equipment, is of great importance. The extra devices, equipment and original technological combinations, help to achieve the results that sometimes surpass the passport characteristics of basic equipment and meet high requirements of structures used at engine development.

The examples of such technologies can be the following:

• high-temperature gasostatic cast hardening;
• permanent solder joining by hot isostatic pressing (HIP);
• special types of thermal treatment including vacuum treatment;
• thick-film galvanic, termo-diffusion and ion-plasma coating, increasing thermal features and other characteristics of the parts, and for operation with hydrogen;
• high-accuracy machining in five and more coordinates at CNC tooling, or in special devices;
• vacuum brazing using special solder alloys to connect multi-layer parts and cooling channels or flow passages;
• electron-beam welding.

The joined team of Konstruktorskoe Buro Khimavtomatiky and Voronezh Mechanical Plant merged into a single scientific production center made it possible to consolidate production capacities of two big enterprises. Thanks to this joining, the Voronezh Center of Rocket Engine Building (VCREB) is for today one of the few centers of the country able to provide the concurrent manufacturing of up to ten types of LREs of various design, technology, and scheme solutions, parameters and propellants.

Currently, the VCREB has been producing the following types of LREs and the LRE’s constituent elements:

• RD0110 LRE for “Soyuz” LV;
• RD0124 LRE for “Soyuz-2.1б”, “Soyuz-STB”, “Soyuz-2.1в” LVs;
• RD0124А LRE for “Angara” LV;
• RD0110Р LRE for “Soyuz-2.1в” LV;
• 11Д58 М LRE for upper stages of DM series;
• combustion chambers for RD-191 LRE for “Angara” LV;
• titanium spherical tanks.

At the same time the company has been mastering the manufacture and performing the technological pre-production activities for the new LRE building:

• RD0124MS for “Soyuz-5” LV;
• RD0146D-1 for LOX–LH2 heavy-class upper stage;
• RD0177 М and RD0169В-1 within the frames of science and technology groundwork for LOX-Methane engines.

The company has been working on manufacturing of test models of the radio-frequency ion propulsions and electric propulsions of various types, and another advanced technique.