A Numerical Simulation Study for A Dual Thrust Solid Propellant Rocket Motor Nozzle

Abstract

Abstract CFD simulation through the rocket motor nozzle is an important issue as it gives a better understanding of the flow behavior and shows the evolution of the parameters along with the nozzle. CFD simulations using ANSYS FLUENT were conducted to model the flow through an experimental dual thrust solid rocket motor nozzle at two pressure values representing the two pressure levels. A two-dimensional axisymmetric numerical simulation was carried out using a pressure-based solver to solve the governing equation and the standard k-ε model to model the turbulence through the motor nozzle. The hot gas properties used in the simulation model were calculated using the CEA software (chemical equilibrium with applications). The parameters marched out from simulations were used to calculate the thrust values for each case. The results calculated through the numerical models compared with the experimental measurements and showed an acceptable level of accuracy.