Investigation on Thermal Behavior During Pressurization Discharge of Liquid Oxygen Under Different Acceleration Levels

Abstract

Cryogenic pressurization discharge involves on complex heat exchange and fluid flow issues, and the related thermal physical performance should be comprehensively investigated. In this study, a two-dimensional axisymmetric numerical model is adopted to research the outflow characteristic from a cylindrical liquid oxygen storage tank with the gas injection. The VOF method is utilized to predict the pressurization discharge with 360 K high-temperature gaseous oxygen as the pressurant gas. Validated against the liquid hydrogen discharge experiments, the numerical model is turned out to be proper and acceptable with the calculation errors limited within 20%. On the basis of the numerical model, effect of the flight acceleration level on the tank pressurization and liquid outflow performance are numerically simulated and analyzed, with the gas injection rate of 0.18 kg/s and the liquid outflow rate of 36.0 kg/s. Some valuable conclusions are obtained finally. The present study is significant to the safety flight of launch vehicle and may supply some technical supports for the design of cryogenic propellant system.