Modeling of Spray Combustion and Heat Transfer of MMH/N 2 O 4 in a Small Rocket Engine Using Different Mechanisms

Ting Zhao, Jianguo Xu and Yuanding Wang ()
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Ting Zhao: School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Jianguo Xu: Shanghai Institute of Space Propulsion, Shanghai 201112, China
Yuanding Wang: Shanghai Institute of Space Propulsion, Shanghai 201112, China

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 19, 1-19

Abstract: Although various hypergolic propellants like MMH/N 2 O 4 (monomethylhydrazine/dinitrogen tetroxide) are widely used in small rocket engines, there remains a lack of in-depth study conducted on their chemical reactions and spray combustion behaviors. To fill this research gap, a simplified chemical kinetic model that is suitable for three-dimensional simulation was proposed in this paper for MMH/N 2 O 4 . Then, numerical investigation was conducted using the Volume of Fluid (VOF) model to explore the transient injection and atomization of MMH/N 2 O 4 impinging jets in a small bipropellant thruster. Also, the instantaneous formation and evolution of the fan-shaped liquid film were analyzed. With the spray distribution determined, the proposed kinetic model and two existing mechanisms were applied to simulate spray combustion and heat transfer within the thruster, respectively, under the Euler–Lagrange framework. According to the research results, the liquid film covered nearly the entire chamber wall with a sawtooth pattern, which protected against the high temperatures of the engine wall. Notably, the two existing mechanisms showed significant errors in predicting temperature changes around the wall due to the excessively simplified reaction pathways. In contrast, the proposed model enabled the accurate prediction of the chamber pressure, wall temperature, and thrust with an error of less than 10%. Given the high accuracy achieved by the proposed numerical method, it provides a valuable reference for the development of advanced space engines.

Keywords: thruster for attitude and orbit control; liquid propellant; spray combustion; turbulent combustion modeling; gas–liquid two-phase flow (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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