Investigation of Afterburning Effects on the Thermal Environment of Flame Deflectors

Abstract

In this paper, a four-nozzle liquid oxygen (LOX)/kerosene rocket is used to analyse the afterburning effects on the thermal environment of flame deflectors. Based on the three-dimensional compressible Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations and the realizable k-ε turbulence model, the rocket plume model is established. A 9-species,10-steps chemistry scheme is used for the simulation of afterburning reaction. On this basis, the impinging flow fields of the rocket exhaustjet with and without chemical reaction are calculated. The results show that the afterburning reaction mainly occurs in the tail section of the plume and the near-wall region, which will obviously increase the local gas temperature. Additionally, the temperature of the mixed layer of the plume also increases due to the afterburning reaction. For the deflector, the temperature of areas under the direct impingement of the rocket plume rises by 20% after adding the afterburning reaction. Meanwhile, a high-temperature layer will be formed, which will obviously increase the overall temperature of the deflector.