A Continuous Flow Boiling Curve in the Heating Configuration Based on New Cryogenic Universal Correlations

Abstract

To enable the design of future in-space cryogenic propellant vehicles such as Lunar and Martian ascent and descent stages, fuel depots, and nuclear thermal propulsion systems, high-accuracy models of various phases of the propellant transfer process are required. This paper focuses on modeling steady-state flow boiling through the transfer line that connects a propellant tank to an engine or customer receiver tank, which is required to set limits on the allowable heat flux into the line. Using the largest-ever collection of available cryogenic heated tube data, universal cryogenic flow boiling correlations were recently developed for various regimes of the boiling curve and their transition points. However, to model flow boiling in heated tubes, these individual correlations must be patched together to provide a continuous predictive curve of wall superheat as a function of preponderant parameters. This paper provides an overview of the individual flow boiling correlations along with the logic and rationale for patching the correlations together to produce a single continuous boiling curve. Resulting flow boiling curves are presented for different possible permutations of independent inlet and flow conditions for illustration.