UNIFIED NAVIER-STOKES FLOWFIELD AND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF LIQUID ROCKET ENGINES

In an effort to improve the current composite solutions in the design and analysis of liquid propulsive engines, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model capable of calculating the reacting flows from the combustion chamber, through the nozzle to the external plume, is developed. Flowfields of a conical nozzle and the Space Shuttle main engine (SSME) fired at sea level are investigated. The CFD model, FDNS (finite difference Navier-Stokes), is a pressure-based, viscous, ideal gas/real gas, reactive flow code. An equilibrium chemistry algorithm is employed using the point implicit method. A conical nozzle with the same expansion ratio as the SSME nozzle is computed to study the shock formation in both the internal and external flowfields. The bell-shaped SSME nozzle is run at 100% power level at various flow conditions. The computed flow solutions and nozzle thrust performance are in good agreement with those of other standard codes and engine hot fire test data.