Effect of Inlet and Outlet Manifolds on Regenerative Cooling in LOX/Methane Thrust Chambers
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https://doi.org/10.1007/s11630-020-1312-4
Article ID: 1003-2169(2020)00-0000-00
Effect of Inlet and Outlet Manifolds on Regenerative Cooling in LOX/Methane Thrust Chambers ZHANG Meng, SUN Bing*, SONG Jiawen School of Astronautics, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China © Science Press, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, CAS and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract: Regenerative cooling is considered one of the most effective cooling methods used in liquid rocket engines and has been widely studied in recent years. But the effect of the non-uniform flow in cooling channels caused by inlet and outlet manifolds did not attract much attention. In this paper, we carried out the coupled flow and heat transfer of combustion and regenerative cooling in a LOX/Methane (LOX means liquid oxygen) engine and compared the results with and without manifolds. Then, three different configurations of the inlet and outlet manifolds were also discussed. The results show that the parameters averaged in the circumferential direction are less affected by the manifolds. However, the existence of the manifolds will make the distribution of mass flow rate as well as wall temperature non-uniform along the circumferential direction. In addition, when the angles between inlet and outlet are 0o, 90o and 180o, the maximum temperature difference along the circumference of throat increases by 90.1%, 151.2% and 229.5%, respectively, compared with that without manifolds. This indicates that the larger the angle between inlet and outlet, the greater the non-uniformity of mass flow rate and wall temperature along the circumferential direction. As a result, extra thermal stress will be generated which could cause some negative effects on the rocket engines.
Keywords: regenerative cooling, conjugate heat transfer, inlet and outlet manifolds, non-uniform flow
1. Introduction With the rapid development of the space industry, many countries are carrying out research on the Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), which can help reduce the cost of space launches and improve its competitiveness. Compared to the traditional hydrogen and kerosene, methane has many advantages as a propellant, including high density, easy to produce and storage, and relatively high specific impulse. Therefore, in recent years, LOX/methane (LOX means liquid oxygen) engine has attracted much attention and has been widely studied [1]. As one of the key components of a liquid rocket
Received: Mar 27, 2019
AE: HUAI Xiulan
engine, the design and test of the thrust chamber is very important. Because the environment within the thrust chamber is characterized by gas temperature up to 3600 K and heat fluxes up to 160 MW/m2 [2], it is necessary to adopt some effective cooling techniques to keep the chamber walls’ temperature within their application limits. Regenerative cooling is widely used in liquid rocket engines as an effective cooling method. Some experimental studies on the LOX/Methane engine have been carried out. Tomita et al. [3] carried out a ho
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