Analysis of supercritical methane in rocket engine cooling channels

Conference paper (2016)

Authors

B.T.C. Zandbergen Space Systems Egineering
P. Natale Centro Italiano di Ricerche Aerospaziali
D. Ricci Centro Italiano di Ricerche Aerospaziali
M. Invigorito Centro Italiano di Ricerche Aerospaziali
Research Group
Space Systems Egineering
Copyright: © 2016 L. Denies, B.T.C. Zandbergen, P. Natale, D. Ricci, M. Invigorito
Aluminium CFD Copper Regenerative cooling Cooling channels Supercritical methane Thrust chamber CHT
More Info
expand_more

Published Date

2016

Language

English

Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Research Group

Space Systems Egineering

Abstract

Methane is a promising propellant for liquid rocket engines. As a regenerative coolant, it would be close to its critical point, complicating cooling analysis. This study encompasses the development and validation of a new, open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method for analysis of methane cooling channels. Validation with experimental data has been carried out, showing an accuracy within 20 K for wall temperature and 10% for pressure drop. It is shown that the turbulence model has only a limited impact on the simulation results and that the wall function approach generates valid results. Finally, a cooling analysis is performed to compare two thrust chamber materials. A traditional copper alloy is compared to aluminium as chamber material for a small moderate-pressure oxygen/ methane engine. The analyses show that aluminium is a feasible chamber material only if a thermal barrier coating is applied. In addition, a significantly higher cooling channel pressure drop is incurred for an aluminium chamber than for a copper chamber due to the lower allowable temperature.