Effect of Triangular Fins on Critical Heat Flux in Ethanol-cooled Combustion Chamber

Abstract

A pressure-fed engine with a regeneratively-cooled combustion chamber is studied in JAXA. Operation chamber pressure is approximately 1 MPa. A proposed propellant combination is liquid oxygen and ethanol. However, it is necessary to understand the critical heat flux when ethanol is used as a coolant for regeneratively-cooled combustion chamber because the saturation pressure of it is 6.3 MPa. In general, it is known that the cooling wall with fins improves the cooling performance. In this study, the effect of triangular fins on critical heat flux of ethanol in ethanol-cooled combustion chamber was investigated. As the result, it was found that the critical heat flux of cooling wall with triangular fins was 23 % higher than that of that without fin in the same velocity condition of the coolant. The critical heat flux increases by the triangular fins on the cooling surface due to the effect of the combination cooling with film boiling and nucleate boiling.