Swirl Coaxial Injector Development, Part II: CFD Modeling
Abstract
Injector design is crucial to obtain long life and provide high energy release efficiency in the main combustion chamber. Introducing a swirl component in the injector flow can enhance the propellant mixing and thus improve engine performance. Therefore, swirl coaxial injectors show promise for the next generation of high performance staged combustion rocket engines utilizing hydrocarbon fuels. These injectors swirl liquid fuel around a gaseous oxygen core. This work develops a design methodology, utilizing both high-pressure cold-flow testing and uni-element hot-fire testing to create a high performing, long life swirl coaxial injector for multi-element combustor use. Several swirl coax injector configurations were designed and fabricated by Sierra Engineering, and tested at the Propulsion Directorate of the Air Force Research Lab. Both cold-flow and hot-fire tests were conducted. CFD analyses have been performed to assess the ability of CFD to provide detailed insight into the flowfield and improve our understanding of the underlying flow characteristics of an optimized injector design. Both cold-flow and hot-fire analyses were completed. The CFD code utilized was the FDNS-RFV code with the homogeneous real-fluid model employed to simulate the spray combustion phenomena for both the cold flow and hot fire conditions. Initial results show that large scale phenomenology was predicted well by the cold-flow CFD analysis (see Figure 1). Detail flow-field characteristics will be compared when the CFD analyses are completed that match actual test operating conditions. The FDNS-RFV code has been widely employed by NASA MSFC to analyze various flow problems of rocket engines. Analysis and test comparisons will be presented and an assessment of the utility of the analyses will be discussed.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 10, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA408257
Entities
People
- Curtis L Johnson
- Gary J Cheng
- Jeff Muss