Numerical study of film cooling in single-element injector gaseous CH4/O2 rocket engine with coupled wall function

Abstract

The investigation of film cooling in CH4/O2 rocket engines holds paramount importance in the advancement of rocket propulsion. However, the wall heat flux is always overestimated in numerical simulation processes. Hence, this article proposes a numerical framework that employs the Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes method to simulate the single-element gaseous CH4/gaseous O2 combustion chamber, which is the basis for rocket engine simulations. The coupled wall function that considers chemical reaction effects is introduced to enhance the accuracy of wall heat flux prediction. The impact of utilizing a coupled wall treatment on the prediction of wall heat flux and its fundamental parameters are examined. In addition, a single-element combustion chamber experiment is performed to validate the simulation. The results demonstrate that the implementation of the coupled wall function hardly influences the main flow characteristics, whereas the wall heat flux calculated with general wall functions shows an overestimation, which can be reduced by the coupled wall function. Finally, the case with a coupled wall function can improve the cooling efficiency with greater accuracy and the cooling systems with optimized design. The proposed numerical framework and the findings of the study provide profound insights that can improve the design and optimization of rocket engines.