Numerical investigation of three-dimensional regenerative cooling in liquid propellant rocket engines

In this paper, regenerative cooling in liquid propellant rocket engine has been studied and investigated. Gambit® is used for mesh generation and 3D modeling. Ansys Fluent® 15 is used for 3D numerical analysis by writing UDF code. This analysis has been done and compared for water and liquid hydrogen as liquid cooler and also liquid hydrogen, RP-1 and JP-4 as a rocket fuel. Results have shown that maximum heat flux and wall temperature occurred in nozzle throat. If used liquid hydrogen coolant instead of water we need 97% less flow to reach the desired temperature. Also by increasing thrust chamber pressure, the heat flux and wall temperature have been increased. Finally the effect of using functionally graded material (FGM) in wall temperature has been studied and investigated. If these materials used in construction of thrust chamber and due to the use of ceramics in this materials and the nature of ceramics insulator, wall temperature increased about 25 percent and the heat transfer will decrease significantly from the thrust chamber wall and therefore increase the thrust.