H2-O2 supercritical combustion modeling using a CFD code

Abstract

The characteristics of propellant injection, mixing, and combustion have a profound effect on liquid rocket engine performance. The necessity of raising rocket engines performance requires a combustion chamber operation often in a supercritical regime. A supercritical combustion model based on a one-phase multi-components approach is developed and tested on a non-premixed H2-O2 flame configuration. A two equations turbulence model is used for describing the jet dynamics where a limited Pope correction is added to account for the oxidant spreading rate. Transport properties of the mixture are calculated using extended high pressure forms of the mixing rules. An equilibrium chemistry scheme is adopted in this combustion case, with both algebraic and stochastic expressions for the chemistry/turbulence coupling. The model was incorporated into a computational fluid dynamics commercial code (Fluent 6.2.16). The validity of the present model was investigated by comparing predictions of temperature, species mass fractions, recirculation zones and visible flame length to the experimental data measured on the Mascotte test rig. The results were confronted also with advanced code simulations. It appears that the agreement between the results was fairly good in the chamber regions situated downstream the near injection zone.