Wall heat flux measurements in a GO2/GH2 heat-sink combustion chamber

Abstract

In order to understand heat transfer mechanisms in the combustion chamber with multi-elements injector and provide benchmark data of wall heat fluxes for the CFD code validation, experiments were carried out in a GH2/GO2 heat-sink combustion chamber. To obtain the transient heat flux in the experiments, the Levenberg-Marquardt method was modified and applied to the rocket combustion chamber based on the temperature measured by single coaxial thermocouple (Named “single-point method”). The comparison between the single-point method and the two-point method with temperatures measured in two points shows that the single-point method could be used as heat flux measurements of the heat-sink combustion chamber in engineering. Heat flux distribution was obtained in experimental conditions of different work time and chamber pressure by the modified method, feasibly and efficiently. For the transient variations of the heat flux, an inverse variation trend of heat flux to time in the cylindrical segment and the nozzle segment was observed. A typical variation of the averaged heat flux was obtained under the conditions with different chamber pressure and work time. The results of wall heat flux scaled with pressure to the power 0.8 can be uniformized for all pressure levels. The heat fluxes obtained in the cylindrical chamber and nozzle section may be applied for the life cycle prediction of rocket engines.

Keywords

• heat-sink
• combustion chamber
• heat flux measurement
• wall temperature
• heat flux distribution