Calculation Study on Flow and Heat Transfer of Regenerative Cooling in Liquid Rocket Engine Thrust Chamber

To study the rapid simulation method of the regenerative cooling flow and heat transfer of the liquid rocket engine thrust chamber, a quasi-two-dimensional model of the regenerative cooling in thrust chamber was established. A numerical simulation of the regenerative cooling flow and heat transfer in the space shuttle main engine was carried out. The results of regenerative cooling quasi-two-dimensional model and three-dimensional model were compared and analyzed. Research shows that both the two calculation models can predict the flow and heat transfer of gas and regenerative coolant in the thrust chamber. Three-dimensional model numerical simulation has higher accuracy but takes more time, and the maximum heat flux on gas side wall is 162.2MW/m2, the maximum wall temperature is 1159.7K, the coolant temperature rise is 244.0K, and the pressure drop is 8.5MPa. The accuracy of the results of quasi-two-dimensional model is slightly reduced, but the calculation time is reduced by 90% compared with that of three-dimensional model. The differences of the four parameters from the calculation results of the three-dimensional model are 0.3%, 4.4%, 8.6% and 4.5%, which are within the acceptable range. The quasi-two-dimensional model in this paper takes less calculation time and is more suitable for the project selection and the optimal design of the regenerative cooling structure of the liquid rocket engine. The three-dimensional model has higher calculation accuracy and is more suitable for the verification calculation after the design. © 2022, Editorial Department of Journal of Propulsion Technology. All right reserved.