Numerical Investigation of Longer Life Combustion Chambers of Liquid Rocket Engines Based on Coupled Thermal-Fluid-Structure Simulation

摘要

The combustion chamber of a liquid rocket engine is under extreme thermal and structural conditions. For development of a highly-reliable reusable rocket engine, it is indispensable to precisely evaluate the life time of a combustion chamber and provide a life enhancement design. Previously, the multi-physics coupled numerical simulation method was developed for life prediction of the combustion chamber. It was suggested that the residual deformation and creep fatigue failure was attributed to the stiffness difference and non-junction between the inner liner and outer jacket In this paper, we investigated using the coupled numerical simulation life enhancement design between the different material and joint constitution of combustion chamber effect and creep fatigue damage mechanism. Consequently, it was clarified that the design of the joint between inner/outer was most effective for the chamber life enhancement. The free shrinkage deformation by the compression strain at the throat of the inner liner should be suppressed by the outer jacket. In addition, both of the mechanical and thermal characteristics of the outer jacket were also effective for the chamber life enhancement. If these life enhancement concept can be applied to the combustion chamber design, it is expected that the chamber life can be enhanced by 25 times longer than the conventional design.