Flow and heat transfer of supercritical hydrogen in a regenerative cooling channel with the arc ribs of a rocket engine

Abstract

This paper reports on the heat transfer characteristics and flow performance of supercritical hydrogen in a regenerative cooling channel with arc-shaped ribs. A 3-D numerical model of hydrogen flowing inside the cooling channel has been established and the data are compared with experimental results. The effect of rib parameters such as the number of ribs n, rib angle θ, rib size (hr × e), and rib orientation (convex or concave) on the cooling channel performance has been explored. The results indicate that arc ribs effectively mitigate the heat transfer deterioration and thermal stratification phenomena by reducing the wall temperature; nevertheless, the pressure loss due to friction would considerably increase. In studied cases, the wall temperature significantly decreases when the rib angle θ increases from 0° to 90°. The results have also shown that increasing the size of square arc ribs while maintaining the same rib spacing p/hr and length of the ribbed section Lr is beneficial for the overall heat transfer performance. Compared to smooth channel, a channel with large 90° arc ribs oriented either convex or concave to the flow direction enhanced the thermohydraulic performance η by up to 45%. This enhancement in performance of channel due to arc ribs is 1.95 and 1.384 times higher than the previously known designs; V-ribs (23%) and cylindrical ribs (32.5%), respectively. The flow field has shown that the evolution and morphology of rib-induced streamwise vortex considerably improve the wall temperature reduction by intense fluid mixing. In addition, it has been shown that the direct impact of the coolant stream on the ribs, the reattachment of the separated shear layer, and the intermittent growth of the boundary layer helps to enhance heat transfer.