Behavior of a Shear-Coaxial Jet, Spanning Sub- to Supercritical Pressures, with and without an Externally Imposed Transverse Acoustic Field

摘要

In the past, liquid rocket engines (LRE) have experienced high- frequency combustion instability, which impose an acoustic field in the combustion chamber. The acoustic field interacts with the fluid jets issuing from the injectors, thus altering the behavior of the jet compared to that of stable operation of the LRE. It is possible that this interaction could be a substantial feed back mechanism driving the combustion instability. In order to understand the problem of combustion instability, it is necessary to understand the interaction of the jet with the acoustic waves. From past combustion instability studies of the liquid oxygen and hydrogen propellant combination in a shear-coaxial injector configuration, a design guideline of outer-to-inner jet velocity ratio greater than about ten was proposed in order to avoid high- frequency acoustic combustion instability problems. However, no satisfactory physical explanation was provided. To promote this understanding, a cold-flow experimental investigation of a shear-coaxial jet interacting with a high- amplitude non-linear acoustic field was undertaken under chamber pressures extending into the supercritical regime. Liquid nitrogen (LN2) flowed from the inner tube of a coaxial injector while gaseous nitrogen (GN2) issued from its annular region. The injector fluids were directed into a chamber pressurized with gaseous nitrogen. The acoustic excitation was provided by an external driver capable of delivering acoustic field amplitudes up to 165 dB. The resonant modes of the chamber governed the two frequencies studied here, with the first two modes being about 3 and 5.2 kHz. High-speed images of the jet were taken with a Phantom CMOS camera.