The Confirmation of Thermal Boundary Parameters in an Oxygen Kerosene Fuel-Rich Rocket Engine

Abstract

The thermal environment is an important factor in the design of liquid rockets. In this paper, theoretical analysis, numerical simulation and experimental testing are conducted to study the boundary thermal characteristics of a GOX/kerosene liquid rocket motor with a total flow rate of 120 g/s and an oxygen-fuel ratio of 1:1. We measured the axial temperature in different positions in the combustor using thermocouples and the heat flux using a flux meter. We found that the heat flux at 182 mm increases by 6.8% when a carbon deposit exists. For the theoretical results, after correcting the thermal conductivity by the volume fraction of carbon deposition, the theoretical heat flux (1.11 MW/m2, using the corrected thermal conductivity) and the numerical result (0.89 MW/m2, considering the injectors) are similar to the experimental value (0.937 MW/m2). This study validates the accuracy of theoretical and simulation calculation in this case, and provides verification data for future numerical calculation, as well as data for setting gas temperature at the wall in the simulation of the gas phase.