Feasibility Study and Modeling of Using More Energetic Propellant in an Existing Liquid Propellant Engine Hardware

摘要

Liquid propellant rocket engine analysis was conducted to compare the performance of using liquid-oxygen/kerosene (LOX/RP-1) propellant instead of Red-Fuming-Nitric-Acid (RFNA) with TONKA-250 in the gas generator of an existing missile. First, a theoretical thermochemical analysis using NASA Chemical Equilibrium and application (CEA) program was performed. The investigated gas generator consists of two parts: a cylinder and a convergent nozzle. The cylinder part has twelve oxidizer injectors, and seven fuel injectors. Regenerative cooling of the gas generator has been simulated to determine chamber heat loads in the cases of the original the proposed propellant combinations. For regenerative cooling analysis, three-dimensional numerical simulation was conducted to investigate the variation of temperature along the combustion chamber using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software. A test bench was proposed to explore the effect of propellant replacement on combustion efficiency. A better performance has been proven by the new propellant, and it is preferable to use it with no need of modifying the existing hardware.