Numerical study of the effect of the fuel film on heat transfer in a rocket engine combustion chamber

Abstract

The combustion chamber of a liquid-fueled rocket engine with an injected fuel film on the wall has been numerically simulated. The engine has been modeled to operate on an RP-1/gaseous oxygen mixture at a chamber pressure of 35 atmospheres. The fuel is a hydrocarbon blend and is used for both engine operation and the fuel-film layer. The fuel layer acts as a flowing thermal insulating shield, reducing the amount of convective and radiative heat flux from the hot combustion gases to the chamber wall. This effort evaluates the effectiveness of the fuel layer in achieving the reduced heat flux to the chamber wall under varying emission/absorption conditions. The tendency of hydrocarbon fuels to produce soot precipitates at near 550K directly affects the optical properties of the fuel layer and the resulting heat transfer to the wall has been modeled and discussed.