Combustion Simulation in Liquid-propellant Rocket Engine Development

Abstract

Combustion chamber of liquid-propellant rocket engine is developed mainly based on tests using subscale chamber with single and multiple injectors and full-scale engine. Understanding the combustion phenomena only from the test is difficult, and the knowledge obtained in the subscale test is not always applicable to the full-scale chamber. Development of numerical simulation technique to predict the onset of combustion instability and evaluate wall heat flux is required. In this article, the compressible Large-Eddy Simulation was applied to the subscale chambers to validate the numerical method. Mechanism of combustion instability was also discussed. Then, present challenge for the analysis of the full-scale rocket chamber by the compressible Large-Eddy Simulation was also presented.