Contour Design and Performance Studies on Aerospike Nozzle
- Paper number
IAC-07-C4.1.06
- Author
Dr. Changhui Wang, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China
- Coauthor
- Coauthor
Dr. Yibai Wang, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China
- Coauthor
Prof. Yu Liu, China
- Coauthor
Dr. Lizi Qin, China
- Year
2007
- Abstract
Aerospike nozzle is a type of nozzle with capacity of continuous altitude compensation. Aerospike nozzle is considered to have better performance at off-design altitudes compared with that of the conventional bell-shaped nozzle. Studies on aerospike nozzle have been carried out in China since 1997. The activities concerned include contour design and its optimization, both hot-firing and cold-flow tests and numerical simulations. Flowfield, base behavior as well as effects of free stream on flowfield and performance of aerospike nozzle were also studied by either experiments or numerical simulations in China. In present paper, a simplified design and optimization method of aerospike nozzle contour and the results of tests and numerical simulation of aerospike nozzles are presented. The primary nozzle contour was approximated by two circular arcs and a parabola; the plug contour was approximated by a parabola and a third-order polynomial. The maximum total impulse from sea level to design altitude was adopted as objective to optimize the aerospike nozzle contour. Hot-firing tests were performed on two gaseous H2/gaseous O2 (GH2/GO2) linear aerospike nozzle engines with one and three round-to-rectangle primary nozzles designed by method proposed in the paper. Data measured in the tests and data analyses were presented. The aerospike nozzle performances and pressure at five locations along aerospike ramp were obtained under different NPRs (nozzle pressure ratio), which is the ratio of combustion chamber pressure to ambient pressure. A thrust computation model for GH2/GO2 aerospike nozzle was developed to study aerospike nozzle aerodynamics simulation with finite-rate chemical kinetics. The computational methodology was built on 7-species, 8-reaction and 6-species, 8-reaction finite-rate chemical models for flowfield of plug and primary nozzle combustion process and a simplified base pressure prediction model for base thrust computation. It was shown that experimental aerospike nozzles have good altitude compensability. High nozzle thrust efficiencies were yielded in the tests. 1-cell aeropike nozzle efficiencies varied within 93 percent to 98 percent at three NPRs from sea level to near design altitude. 3-cell aerospike nozzle performance was obtained under two NPRs lower than design altitude. Efficiencies reached 92 percent to 93.5 percent and 95 percent to 96 percent, respectively. The proposed contour design method and thrust computation model was validated by the hot-firing tests. Thrust efficiencies predicted by the model were in good agreements with experimental data.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-07-C4.1.06.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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