Abstract
To improve the performance of a high-pressure refueling liquid oxy-kerosene engine, the influence of drag-reducing additive on the heat transfer characteristics in the supercritical flow of kerosene in a microchannel for regenerative cooling is explored. The finite-volume CFD numerical simulation method is applied using the RNG k-ε turbulence model and enhanced wall function. The current work faithfully represents the effect of the drag-reducing additive in kerosene through numerical calculations by combining a 10-component model for the physical properties of the kerosene and the Carreau non-Newtonian fluid constitutive model from rheological measurements. Results suggest that the 10-component kerosene surrogate can describe the supercritical physical properties of kerosene. The inlet temperature, inlet velocity, and the heat flux on the channel wall are driving factors for the supercritical kerosene flow and heat transfer characteristics. The pressure influence on the heat transfer is negligible. With polymer additives, the loss in pressure drop and heat transfer performance of supercritical kerosene flow decrease 46.8% and 37.5% respectively. The enhancement of engine thrust caused by reduction in pressure drop is an attractive improvement of concern.
Highlights
Accepted: 12 October 2021The high thrust liquid oxygen kerosene engines improve the carrying capacity of a rocket
A reduction in the pressure drop loss of kerosene flow in the supercritical state can improve the performance of the rocket
To improve the performance of a high-pressure refueling liquid oxy-kerosene engine, the drag reduction effect and mechanism of supercritical kerosene additives are explored in this article
Summary
The high thrust liquid oxygen kerosene engines improve the carrying capacity of a rocket. Zhang et al [17] used a 10-component surrogate model of supercritical kerosene, and carried out numerical simulation studies to reveal that the secondary flow that formed in a curved tube strengthened the heat transfer. To improve the performance of a high-pressure refueling liquid oxy-kerosene engine, the drag reduction effect and mechanism of supercritical kerosene additives are explored in this article. The influence of the JZM polymer additives on the flow and heat transfer characteristics of kerosene was comparatively analyzed, which may give support to the development of high-pressure refueling liquid oxygen kerosene rocket engines. The model and method were set up in detail, using Fluent with UDF compiled to deploy the basic fluid model and Carreau constitutive model to study the drag reduction and heat transfer mechanism of the polymer kerosene solution flow.
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