Drift and afterburning effect on rocket exhaust plume impingement and optimization of deflector

Abstract

This paper studies the one-nozzle liquid rocket exhaust plume impinging on the flame deflector. The effect of drift and afterburning on exhaust plume impinging on the deflector during the takeoff phase is studied by numerical simulation. An impact model is established based on three-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes equations, a two-equation realizable k-epsilon turbulence model, an afterburning model, and second-order total variation diminishing upwind scheme. The study shows that the smoothness of the deflector discharge is affected by the impingement position of the exhaust plume impinging on the deflector due to the drift of such a position during the take-off phase of the rocket. The temperature of the rocket exhaust plume flow field after considering the chemical reactions is higher than that of the frozen flow, and the temperature of the deflector surface is also higher than that of the frozen case. With the increase of the impingement angleat inlet areaof the rocket exhaust plume impinging on the deflector, the deflector discharge performance gradually decreases. At the same impingement angleat inlet area, as the impingement angleat exit areadecreases, the deflector slot discharges more smoothly.