Investigation into the Feasibility of Using Turbulators in Liquid Rocket Combustion Chamber Cooling Channels Using a Conjugate Heat Transfer Analysis

摘要

Greater demands on liquid rocket engines require greater thermal performance. Lowering the maximum wall temperature in a nozzle aids in reusability and allows a wider range of engine balances. A conjugate heat transfer analysis is carried out to simulate an 89 kN, hydrogen cooled, thrust chamber environment to determine the feasibility of adding turbulators to the combustion chamber cooling channels. An existing regeneratively cooled chamber is used as a baseline case to be compared against. The investigation includes using delta wedge turbulators in various configurations in the cooling channels to increase the heat transfer through the channel hot wall (wall adjacent to the hot gas wall) and on the two channel sidewalls. Since much research has been conducted on ribbed turbulators, a single case using ribbed turbulators in the cooling channels is also be analyzed for comparison. A conjugate heat transfer analysis is performed using a straight duct with the rib and wedge geometries included, with boundary conditions like those found in the 89 kN thrust chamber. Thirty-six different simulations with various wedge configurations are run to envelope the thermal performance potential of using delta wedges in this cooling channel environment. The goal is to reduce the hot gas side wall temperature at a minimal cost in pressure drop by comparing several configurations against a baseline case. Adding ribs to the cooling channel dropped the maximum hot wall temperature by 10 K, with a 23.7 percent increase in pressure drop, while adding wedges to the cooling channel dropped the temperature by 104 K with a 12.4 percent increase in pressure drop.