Coupled numerical simulation of combustion and regenerative cooling in LOX/Methane rocket engines

This paper describes a methodology for the prediction of coupled heat transfer of combustion and regenerative cooling in liquid rocket engines. Mixing and combustion processes are simulated by a non-adiabatic flamelet model; flow fields of the hot gas and coolant are computed by a pressure-based coupled algorithm; heat transfer among the hot gas, coolant, and cooling channels is solved by a conjugate manner. The validity and practicality are assessed by published test, and the numerical results agree well with test data. The methodology is further applied to investigate coupled flow and heat transfer in a typical LOX/Methane thrust chamber with multi-injector elements. The results show that hot-gas-side wall heat flux and temperature are non-uniform and vary periodically in the circumferential direction. The intense expanding of transcritical flames impact on the chamber wall, which brings about the local maximum of hot-gas-side wall heat flux in the near injection region. The wall temperature and heat flux in the combustion chamber obtained by this methodology are more consistent with practical situations than those predicted by traditional methodologies.