Image analysis for velocity profile estimation in A-SOFT hybrid rocket combustor

摘要

Altering-intensity Swirling-Oxidizer-Flow-Type (A-SOFT) hybrid rocket engine (HRE) was proposed as a technique to solve problems of current hybrid rockets. It uses axial and tangential oxidizer injections and their mass flow rates are manipulated independently to control the thrust and O/F. The visualization experiment of combustion of gaseous oxygen (GOX) and polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) of A-SOFT HRE is carried out under combustion pressure of 1 bar. Combustion gas flow in the combustor is captured by high speed cameras whose fps is 30000. In order to capture the nature of the flow field quantitatively, obtaining velocity profiles by image analysis applied to its visualization images is effective. Basic image analysis method is Direct Cross Correlation method and, for high precision and spatial resolution, Correlation Based Correction is applied recursively. Averaged velocity profiles are obtained by averaging the calculation results of 10000 images corresponding to the actual time duration of 0.3 s. Flames with strong white light emission are characteristic of hybrid rockets and regarded as traceable markers for the image analysis. These luminous flames are considered to flow in the boundary layer and velocity of flames in the boundary layer is important to capture the characteristics of combustion flow field. Axial velocity of the luminous flame is proportional to the total mixed mass flow rate for each location x. Tangential velocity is proportional to angular momentum given by tangential GOX injection and inversely proportional to the total mixed mass flow rate for each location x. And how much GOX injected in axial and tangential directions are mixed is speculated by velocity profiles. It is found that mixing of GOX injected in axial and tangential directions occurs at almost the same constant rate regardless of the ratio of GOX mass flow rate injected in axial and tangential directions.