Fluid-Structure Interaction Effects on Mass Flow Rates in Solid Rocket Motors

Abstract

Determination of mass flow rate in a solid rocket motor is critical in the design of a new motor due to its effect on the thrust produced. Fluidstructure interaction (FSI) effects between the combusting gases and propellant alter the motor chamber pressure and mass flow rate. To account for the FSI effects on mass flow rate in an expedited fashion, an automated method of coupling computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to finite element analysis (FEA) is explored. A propellant flap in a cross flow is analyzed. Comparisons are made between an analytical solution, a solely CFD solution, a manual FSI solution, and an automated FSI solution. The one-way FSI analysis, effectively the undeformed CFD solution, overpredicted the pressures and mass flow rates. The FSI analyses with twoway coupling provided a more accurate assessment of solid rocket motor internal ballistics

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 02, 2015
Accession Number
AD1003198

Entities

People

  • William R. Harrigan

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Couplings
  • Equations
  • Flow Rate
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Geometry
  • Mass Flow
  • Mechanical Properties
  • Mechanics
  • Military Research
  • Propellants
  • Rocket Engines
  • Rockets
  • Solid Propellants
  • Strain Rate

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
  • Fluid Dynamics.
  • Rocket Propulsion.