Abstract
LOX/GCH4pintle injector is suitable for variable-thrust liquid rocket engines. In order to provide a reference for the later design and experiments, three-dimensional numerical simulations with the Euler-Lagrange method were performed to study the effect of the initial particle diameter on the combustion characteristics of a LOX/GCH4pintle rocket engine. Numerical results show that, as the momentum ratio between the radial LOX jet and the axial gas jet is 0.033, the angle between the LOX particle trace and the combustor axial is very small. Due to the large recirculation zones, premixed combustion mainly occurs in the injector wake region. As the initial LOX particle diameter increases, the LOX evaporation rate and the combustion efficiency decrease until the combustion terminates with the initial LOX particle diameter greater than 110 μm. The oscillation amplitude of the combustor pressure increases significantly along with the increase of the initial LOX particle diameter, and the low-frequency unstable combustion occurs when the initial LOX particle diameter exceeds 60 μm. The combustor pressure oscillation at about 40 Hz couples with the swinging process of spray and flame, while the unsteady LOX evaporation amplifies the combustor pressure oscillations at 80 Hz and its harmonic frequency.
Highlights
Space activities have been going on for more than half a century, and the rocket engines using toxic propellants have achieved good performance and stability in a large number of launch missions
Numerical simulation was performed to study the effect of the initial LOX particle diameter on the combustion
Several conclusions drawn from the numerical analysis are gained: (1) As the momentum ratio between the radial LOX jet and the axial gas jet is 0.033, LOX particles with the initial particle diameter of 10 μm cannot penetrate the premixed fuel gas after being injected radially into the combustor and are completely evaporated at x = 65 mm
Summary
Space activities have been going on for more than half a century, and the rocket engines using toxic propellants have achieved good performance and stability in a large number of launch missions. Toxic propellants always have the disadvantages of toxicology, high cost, and environmental pollution. With the enhancement of social awareness of environmental protection and the continuous development of manned space activities, nontoxicity propellants will inexorably become the mainstream in the future [1]. Many research results indicate that methane has advantage in various aspects, such as specific impulse, cooling capacity, and maintainability. Methane overcomes the weakness of low density of hydrogen and small specific impulse of kerosene but combines the advantages of them [2, 3]. The overall performance of methane is between kerosene and hydrogen. LOX/GCH4 bipropellant has become an important research direction of chemical propulsion
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