Simulation of the Effect of Nanoparticles on Improvement of Regenerative Cooling in Liquid Propellant Engine

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Department of chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Malek Ashtar University of technology

2 Department of chemistry and Chemical Engineering-Malek-Ashtar University of Technology-Tehran-Iran

3 Department of chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Malek Ashtar University of Technology, Tehran

4 Department of Aerospace Engineering, Malek Ashtar University of technology, Tehran-Iran

Abstract

The presence of high combustion temperatures requires effective cooling methods in the combustion chamber. Most chambers in liquid propellant engines have rgenerative cooling. A new way to improve heat transfer performance in the regenerative cooling process is to add nanoparticles to the cooling fluid. In this study, the regenerative cooling in a liquid propellant engine was simulated numerically by fluent software. The engine is designed to work on a mixture of kerosene as fuel and liquid oxygen as an oxidizer with a thrust of 300 kN. In the following, carbon nanotubes and alumina nanoparticles were used in 2% and 5% volume fraction to be added to kerosene for nanofluid production. In this study, the fluid flow in the three-dimensional cooling channel is assumed to be steady-state, turbulent and the k-ε turbulence model is used for turbulent flow, and the nanofluids are modeled as single-phase. Addition of nanoparticles alumina and carbon nanotube to kerosene as cooling fluid increased the heat transfer coefficient by 8% and 15%, respectively. According to the results, carbon nanotubes have a higher ability to increase heat transfer coefficient and improve regenerative cooling than alumina nanoparticle.

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