Prediction of wall thermal behavior in regeneratively-cooled thrust chamber

Coolant-flow modeling in regeneratively cooled rocket engines fed with turbo-machinery is a challenging task because of the high wall temperature gradient, the high Reynolds number, the high aspect ratio of the channel cross section and the heat transfer coupling with the hot-gas flow and the solid material. In this study the effect of wall heat conduction on the coolant flow is analyzed by means of coupled computations between a validated Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations solver for the coolant flow-field and a Fourier’s equation solver for the thermal conduction in the solid material. Coupled computations of supercritical-hydrogen flow in the cooling circuit of the Space Shuttle Main Engine Main Combustion Chamber are analyzed in detail and discussed for the sake of comparison with available literature data and solutions obtained with simplified engineering tools.