THE BEHAVIOR OF CRYOGENIC SHEAR LAYERS UNDER SUPERCRITICAL CONDITIONS

Abstract : As combustion chamber pressures increase in order to realize higher performance and efficiency in a wide range of propulsion applications, the injected fluid may experience ambient pressures which exceed the critical pressure of the injected propellants. For example, in the cryogenic liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen Space Shuttle main engine, the thrust chamber pressure is more than 4 times larger then the critical pressure of oxygen. In these applications, the initial temperature of the injected oxygen can initially be below the critical temperature, and then undergo a transition to a supercritical temperature as the oxygen is mixed and burned in the combustion chamber.