Numerical simulation of reacting flow in the combustion chamber and study of the impact of turbulent diffusion coefficients

A methodology for combustion modeling with complex mixing and thermodynamic conditions, especially in thrusters, is still under development. The resulting flow and propulsion parameters strongly depend on the models used, especially on the turbulence model as it determines the mixing efficiency. In this paper, the effect of the sigma-type turbulent diffusion coefficients arriving in the diffusion term of the turbulence model is studied. This study was performed using complex modeling, considering the conjugate effect of several physical phenomena such as turbulence, chemical reactions, and radiation heat transfer. To consider the varying turbulent Prandtl, an algebraic model was implemented. An adiabatic steady diffusion Flamelet approach was used to model chemical reactions. The P1 differential model with a WSGG spectral model was used for radiation heat transfer. The gaseous oxygen (GOX) and methane (GCH4) operating thruster developed at the Chair of turbomachinery and Flight propulsion of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) is taken as a test case. The studies use the 3D RANS approach using the 60 degrees sector as the modeling domain. The normalized and absolute pressures, the integral and segment averaged heat flux are compared to numerical results. The wall heat fluxes and pressure distributions show good agreement with the experimental data, while the turbulent diffusion coefficients mostly influence the heat flux.