Numerical Analysis and Validation of Regenerative Cooling in Liquid Engines

In liquid based rocket engines, heating at the nozzle throat is a problem of serious concern. Several methods for reducing this heat are used such as film cooling, radiative cooling and regenerative cooling. The regenerative cooling technique is a widely used technique among all. In this technique, the fuel is passed over the engine through different channels that takes heat from the hot nozzle wall. Thus, it is necessary for determining the heat-flux and temperature in the design phase of the engine. In this paper, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis is performed to have a detailed insight into the flow behavior occurring inside the channels and this validation is a part of the designing of a novel engine with regenerative cooling system in it. The results of the Shuttle engine (SSME) of NASA are used for validation for predicting critical heat-flux and temperature in the different regions of the nozzle. A User Defined Function (UDF) is also applied on nozzle wall for the calculation of heat-flux by means of the Bartz equation. Through this analysis, the results of the gas-side wall heat-flux and the temperature were determined for the nozzle and the channel for SSME. It was found that the results are in reasonable agreement with the published experimental data.