Numerical evaluation of acoustic characteristics and their damping of a thrust chamber using a constant-volume bomb model

Abstract

In order to numerically evaluate the acoustic characteristics of liquid rocket engine thrust chambers by means of a computational fluid dynamics method, a mathematical model of an artificial constant-volume bomb is proposed in this paper. A localized pressure pulse with a very high amplitude can be imposed on specified regions in a combustion chamber, the numerical procedure of which is described. Pressure oscillations actuated by the released constant-volume bomb can then be analyzed via Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT), and their modes can be identified according to the theoretical acoustic eigenfrequencies of the thrust chamber. The damping performances of the corresponding acoustic modes are evaluated by the half-power bandwidth method. The predicted acoustic characteristics and their damping for a special engine combustor agree well with the experimental data, validating the mathematical model and its numerical procedures. A small-thrust liquid rocket engine chamber is then analyzed by the present model. The First Longitudinal (1L) acoustic mode can be excited easily and is hard to be damped. The axial position of the central constant-volume bomb has little influence on the amplitude and damping capacity of the First Radial (1R) and 1L acoustic modes. Tangential acoustic modes can only be triggered by an off-centered constant-volume bomb, among which the First Tangential (1T) mode is the strongest and regarded as the most harmful one. The amplitude of the 1L acoustic mode is smaller, but its damping factor is larger, as a constant-volume bomb is imposed approaching the injector face. These results are contributed to evaluate the acoustic characteristics and their damping of the combustion chamber.