Young-Mog Kim

Application of Combustion Stabilization Devices to Liquid Rocket Engine

Application of combustion stabilization devices such as baffle and acoustic cavity to liquid propellant rocket engine is investigated to suppress high-frequency combustion instability, i.e., acoustic instability. First, these damping devices are designed based on linear damping theory. As a principal design parameter， damping factor is considered and calculated numerically in the chambers with/without these devices. Next, the unbaffled chambers with/without acoustic cavities are tested experimentally for several operating conditions. The unbaffled chamber shows the peculiar stability characteristics depending on the operating condition and it is found to have small dynamic stability margin. As a result, the acoustic cavity with the present design has little stabilization effect in this specific chamber. Finally， stability rating tests are conducted with the baffled chamber, where evident combustion stabilization is observed, which indicates sufficient damping effect.

Effects of various baffle designs on acoustic characteristics in combustion chamber of liquid rocket engine

Effects of various baffle designs on acoustic characteristics in combustion chamber are numerically investigated by adopting linear acoustic analysis. A hub-blade configuration with five blades is selected as a candidate baffle and five variants of baffles with various specifications are designed depending on baffle height and hub position. As damping parameters, natural-frequency shift and damping factor are considered and the damping capacity of various baffle designs is evaluated. Increase in baffle height results in more damping capacity and the hub position affects appreciably the damping of the first radial resonant mode. Depending on baffle height, two close resonant modes could be overlapped and thereby the damping factor for one resonant mode is increased exceedingly. The present procedure based on acoustic analysis is expected to be a useful tool to predict acoustic field in combustion chamber and to design the passive control devices such as baffle and acoustic resonator.

A Numerical Study on Acoustic Behavior in Combustion Chamber with Acoustic Cavity

Acoustic behavior in combustion chamber with acoustoc cavity is numerically investigated by adopting linear acoustic analysis. Helmholtz-type resonator is employed as a cavity model to suppress acoustic instability passively. The tuning frequency of acoustic cavity is adjusted by varying the sound speed in acoustic cavity. Through harmonic analysis, acoustic pressure responses of chamber to acoustic oscillating excitation are shown and the resonant acoustic modes are identified. Acoustic damping effect of acoustic cavity is quantified by damping factor. As the tuning frequency approaches the target frequency of the resonant mode to be suppressed, mode split from the original resonant mode to lower and upper modes appears and thereby damping effect is degraded significantly. Considering mode split and damping effect as a function of tuning frequency, it is desirable to make acoustic cavity tuned to maximum frequency of those of the possible splitted upper modes.

Numerical Analysis on the Discharge Characteristics of a Liquid Rocket Engine Injector Orifice

A numerical analysis was performed on the fluid flow in injector orifice of a liquid rocket engine. The present computational code was verified against the published data for turbulent flow in a pipe with a sudden expansion-contraction. Considered were the parameters for the flow analysis in an injector orifice: Reynolds number, ratio of mass flow rate of the injector orifice and inlet flow rate, and slant angle of the injector orifice. The discharge coefficient increased slightly as the Reynolds number increased. The slant angle of the injector changed critically the discharge coefficient. The discharge coefficient increased by 7% when the slant angle changed from to The ratio of mass flow rate had relatively little impact on the discharge coefficient.

Development of 30-Ton f LOx/Kerosene Rocket Engine Combustion Devices(II) - Gas Generator

The development process of a gas generator for a 30-tonf pump-fed space liquid rocket engine is described. Starting from the development of an injector, followed by subscale and full-scale test specimens, the development of LOx/kerosene fuel-rich gas generator has been concluded successfully. Various analytical methods have been utilized in the course of design and the performance requirements have been verified experimentally through ignition tests, combustion performance and stability assessment tests and duration tests. The gas generator has proven its workability and stability within a defined operation window of varying chamber pressure and mixture ratio and demonstrated compliance to the performance and life time requirements.

Stability Rating of KSR-III Rocket Engine

Stability rating of KSR-III rocket engine is conducted based on stability rating tests in the course of development of KSR-III rocket engine. Rocket engine is approved to have combustion stabilization ability when it can suppress the external perturbation or pressure oscillation with finite amplitude and recover the original stable combustion. Rocket engine in flight may be perturbed by unexpectedly large-amplitude pressure oscillation and thus a designer should not only assure combustion stabilization ability of the engine but also quantify the stabilization capacity. For this, principal quantitative parameters and their evaluation are introduced. To verify dynamic stability of KSR-III rocket engine, six stability rating tests have been conducted. Based on these test results, such parameters are quantified and thereby, the stabilization capacity of KSR-III rocket engine is evaluated.

Numerical Analysis on 3-dimensional Heat transfer of Heating Surface with Periodically Arrayed Injectors

Three dimensional numerical heat transfer analysis was carried out against periodically arranged fuel injectors of the liquid rocket engine. A finite volume method based on SIMPLE algorithm was adapted which gave a good agreement with the published results of the heat transfer problem of a backward facing step. The Nusselt number and pressure drop increased as the distance between the injector elements decreased. When the Reynolds number increased, the Nusselt number increased but nondimensionalized pressure drop decreased slightly.

Hot Fire Tests of the KSR-III Sub.(I) Engines

In the preceding tests using the KSR-III Sub.(I) engines, it was observed that the heat resistant capability of the engines was not enough for the mission. So Sub.(I) Mod. engines were designed and tested. The Sub.(I) Mod. engines have three major design parameters - the arrangement of main injectors, the impinging angle of main injectors and thermal barrier coating. More than twenty experiments were carried on to evaluate engine performance and heat resistance capability with respect to design parameters. In this study, the test results are introduced. Analysing the result of Sub.(I) engine tests, it is found that decreasing the impinging angle, adopting the H-type arrangement(rather than radial type arrangement) and adopting the thermal barrier coating can increase heat resistance capacity substantially. Also, engine performance evaluation is conducted using specific impulse and characteristic velocity parameter. The results show that the performance variation is small(about 5%) and the performance is better in the case of radial arrangement. It is suspected that these phenomena are caused by the change of flame structure atomization mixing characteristic of sprays and the distortion of recirculation zone. Also from the low frequency instability point of view, it is observed that reducing the impinging angle and adopting the H type arrangement can increase the instability characteristics.