Issue |
Volume 11, 2019
Progress in Propulsion Physics – Volume 11
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Page(s) | 391 - 406 | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/eucass/201911391 | |
Published online | 08 February 2019 |
Hot-fire testing of liquid oxygen/hydrogen single coaxial injector at high-pressure conditions with optical diagnostics
Institute of Space Propulsion, Germany Aerospace Center (DLR) Lampoldshausen 74219, Germany
Injector behavior is of utmost importance for the performance and stability of liquid rocket engines (LREs). A major problem is getting a highly efficient homogeneous mixture and effective chemical reaction of fuels at minimum chamber length. Despite substantial progress in numerical simulations, a need for experimental data at representative conditions for development and validation of numerical design tools still exists. Therefore, in the framework of the DLR-project “ProTau,” the authors have performed tests to create an extended data base for numerical tool validation for high-pressure liquid oxygen (LOx) / hydrogen combustion. During the experimental investigations, a windowed DLR subscale thrust chamber model “C” (designated BKC) has been operated over a broad range of conditions at reduced pressures of approximately 0.8 (4 MPa), 1 (5 MPa), and 1.2 (6 MPa) with respect to the thermodynamic critical pressure of oxygen. Liquid oxygen and gaseous hydrogen (GH2) have been injected through a single coaxial injector element at temperatures of ~ 120 and ~ 130 K, respectively. High-speed optical diagnostics have been implemented, including imaging of OH* emission and shadowgraph imaging at frequencies from 8 up to 10 kHz to visualize the flow field.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2019
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.