Design and analysis of a cooling system for a supersonic exhaust diffuser

Abstract

High-altitude test facilities are usually used to evaluate the performance of space mission engines. The supersonic exhaust diffuser, a main part of high-altitude test facility, provides the required test cell vacuum conditions by self-pumping the nozzle exhaust gases to the atmosphere. However, the plume temperature is often much higher than the temperature the diffuser structure is able to withstand, usually above 2500 K. In this study, an efficient cooling system is designed and analyzed to resolve the thermal problem. A water spray cooling technique is preferred among various existing techniques. Here, a new algorithm is developed for a spray cooling system for a supersonic exhaust diffuser. This algorithm uses a series of experimental and geometrical relationships to resize the governing parameters and remove the required heat flux from the diffuser surface. The efficiency of the newly designed cooling system is evaluated via numerical simulations. The utilized numerical technique is based on the discrete-phase method. Various computational studies are accomplished to enhance the accuracy of numerical prediction and validation. The present numerical study is validated using experimental results. The results show that the realizable k-ɛ method is superior compared to other Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes models.