THERMOSTRUCTURAL DESIGN OF THE HYPROB METHANE COOLING CHANNEL BREADBOARD

摘要

In the frame of the HYPROB/Bread project, whose main goal is to design build and test a 30 kN regeneratively cooled thrust chamber, a breadboard has been conceived in order to evaluate the thermal properties of methane in supercritical conditions. The breadboard is called MTP (Methane Thermal Properties) and it is made of Glidcop Al 15. The heating process of the breadboard is obtained by means of Nickel-Chrome wire wrapped cartridges. The methane flows through a rectangular cross section with a mass flow rate of 20 g/s. The aim of the present paper is to illustrate the thermo-structural design conducted on the breadboard by means of a Finite Element Method code taking into account the viscoplastic behaviour of Glidcop Al 15. An optimization process has been carried out in order to keep the structural integrity of the breadboard maximizing the life cycles of the component.