A 3D numerical study of LO2/GH2 supercritical combustion in the ONERA-Mascotte Test-rig configuration

Abstract

Cryogenic propellants LOx/H2 are used at very high pressure in rocket engine combustion. The description of the combustion process in such application is very complex due essentially to the supercritical regime. Ideal gas law becomes invalid. In order to try to capture the average characteristics of this combustion process, numerical computations are performed using a model based on a one-phase multi-component approach. Such work requires fluid properties and a correct definition of the mixture behavior generally described by cubic equations of state with appropriated thermodynamic relations validated against the NIST data. In this study we consider an alternative way to get the effect of real gas by testing the volume-weighted-mixing-law with association of the component transport properties using directly the NIST library data fitting including the supercritical regime range. The numerical simulations are carried out using 3D RANS approach associated with two tested turbulence models, the standard k-Epsilon model and the realizable k-Epsilon one. The combustion model is also associated with two chemical reaction mechanisms. The first one is a one-step generic chemical reaction and the second one is a two-step chemical reaction. The obtained results like temperature profiles, recirculation zones, visible flame lengths and distributions of OH species are discussed.