Numerical prediction of the two-phase flow and radiation effects on the thermal environment and ablation of solid rocket nozzle

Abstract

The effects of two-phase flow and radiative heat transfer have a significant impact on the internal thermal environment and thermochemical ablation process in aluminized solid rocket motor (SRM). However, these two effects were not revealed systematically in previous studies. In this paper, a multiscale methodology combined radiative properties of molten alumina particles at microscale calculated by Mie theory and the two-phase flow and radiative heat transfer at macroscale calculated by Eulerian-Lagrangian method coupling with discrete ordinate method is constructed within aluminized SRM. The convection and radiation are coupled with the chemical kinetics to predict the thermochemical ablation and thermal environment. The influence of two-phase fluid flow and thermal radiation on the internal thermal environment and thermochemical ablation of a SRM nozzle is analyzed quantitatively. Comparisons are made among the methodologies that models the alumina particles as gas species, considers the effect of two-phase flow and considers the effects of two-phase flow and radiative heat transfer. The results show that the erosion rate and total heat flux at the inner wall in the convergent section increase noticeably when considering the effect of two-phase flow. Meanwhile, the erosion rate in the divergent section also increases and the thermal environment is dependent on the particle size and aluminum content. Radiative heat transfer considerably enhances the total heat flux, especially in the convergent section. On the contrary, its impact on the erosion rate is very small except for the inner wall with very low temperature.