Transient combustion responses of homogeneous propellants to acoustic oscillations in axisymmetric rocket motors

Abstract

A numerical analysis of unsteady motions in solid rocket motors has been conducted. The formulation considers a 2-D axisymmetric combustion chamber and a choke nozzle, and treats the complete conservation equations accounting for turbulence closure and finiterate chemical kinetics in the gas phase and subsurface reactions. A fully coupled implicit scheme based on a dual time-stepping integration algorithm has been adopted to solve the governing equations and associated boundary conditions. Results of the steady-state calculations indicate that the distributions of pressure in the motor and Mach number in the nozzle are one-dimensional along the axial direction. Vorticity contours show similar pattern to those of Mach number in the combustion chamber. The nozzle has an influence on the flow and temperature fields in the combustion chamber. A narrow pressure pulse is imposed at the head end to simulate unsteady acoustic oscillations in the combustion chamber. When the front of the pulse reaches near the nozzle throat, pressure near the nozzle throat increases and blocks the hot gas flow from passing through the nozzle throat. Self-generated oscillations have similar frequencies to those of standing waves of the combustion chamber. Large vorticity fluctuations are observed in near surface region. The luminous flame zone responds to low-frequency pressure wave rather than highfrequency one. Temperature fluctuations in the primary flame zone of the head end oscillates independently of the imposed pressure oscillations while temperature fluctuations in downstream region show pressure-dependent oscillations.