Modeling of Wall Heat Flux in Oxygen-Methane Liquid Rocket Thrust Chambers

Concio, Pierluigi; Migliorino, Mario Tindaro; Bianchi, Daniele; Nasuti, Francesco

doi:10.2514/6.2022-3275

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Methane and propane are two hydrocarbon fuels that are studied and used as rocket fuels and are also considered green propellants [14]. Especially with the advent of commercial rockets utilizing methane, LOX/liquid methane (LCH 4 ) engines have been studied extensively over the last two decades [15][16][17][18][19][20]. In some of these studies, 1-D regenerative cooling analyses of such engines were conducted.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regenerative Cooling Comparison of LOX/LCH4 and LOX/LC3H8 Rocket Engines Using the One-Dimensional Regenerative Cooling Modelling Tool ODREC

Kose,

Celik

2023

Applied Sciences

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Due to the extreme temperatures inside the combustion chambers of liquid propellant rocket engines, the walls of the combustion chamber and the nozzle are cooled by either the fuel or the oxidizer in what is known as regenerative cooling. This study presents an indigenous computational tool developed for the analysis of heat transfer in regenerative cooling of such rocket engines. The developed tool incorporates a one-dimensional (1-D) combustion analysis to calculate the thermophysical properties of the combustion gas. Basic engine properties were calculated and used to generate a thrust chamber profile based on a bell-shaped nozzle. The hot gas side was analyzed using 1-D isentropic flow assumptions, along with heat transfer correlations. The coolant side was evaluated using the hydraulic analysis in the axial direction and the heat transfer analysis in the radial direction. Thermophysical properties and the phase of the coolant were determined using the given property tables and the instantaneous state of the coolant. This flexible and computationally less demanding tool was used to analyze two small-scale engines utilizing liquid hydrocarbon fuels, which are used in modern rocket propulsion. The wall cooling analyses of a liquid oxygen (LOX)/liquid methane (LCH4) engine and a liquid oxygen (LOX)/liquid propane (LC3H8) engine are presented. Fuel and oxidizer were used separately as coolants for both engines, and both of them experienced phase change. Results reveal the advantage of the high mass flow rate of the oxidizer in cooling performance. In addition, the results of this study show that the cooling of the LOX/LC3H8 engine is somewhat more challenging compared to the LOX/LCH4 engine.

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