Experimental study on the spray characteristics of a dual-manifold liquid-centered swirl coaxial injector

Abstract

A throttleable rocket engine enables operational possibilities such as the docking of spacecraft, maneuvering in a certain orbit and landing on a planet's surface, altitude control, and entrance to atmosphere-less planets. Thus, throttling methods have long been researched. However, dual-manifold injectors, which represent one throttling method, have been investigated less than others. In this study, dual-manifold and single-manifold injectors were compared to determine the characteristics of dual-manifold injectors. Also, the effects of gas injection were investigated with various F/O ratios. To investigate the characteristics, mass flow rate, spray pattern, spray angle, and droplet size were measured. The spray angle and droplet size were captured by indirect photography. About 30 images were taken to assess the spray patterns and spray angle. Also, 700 images were analyzed to understand the droplet distribution and targeting area, moving to the right from the centerline with 1.11-cm intervals. The droplet size was obtained from an image processing procedure. From the results, the spray angle showed two transition regions, due to swirl momentum in the swirl chamber regardless of the F/O ratio. The droplet size showed similar trends in both dual-manifold and single-manifold injectors except in the low mass flow rate region. In the case of the dual- manifold injector, the spray cone was not fully developed in the low mass flow rate region due to low angular momentum in the swirl chamber.