Analytical Solution of Steady Flow Field

in Unidirectional-Vortex-Injection
Hybrid Rocket Engines
Kohei Ozawa*1 and Toru Shimada*2
The University of Tokyo, JAXA
1 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
Backgrounds (1)
The largest challenge of hybrid rocket
engines(HREs) is low regression rate.
up to 1mm/s in classical axial hybrid rocket
engines

Vortex injection hybrid rocket
engines(VIHREs) can increase
regression rates.
up to 3 mm/s

In Japan, unidirectional VIHREs(UVIHRE)
are mainly experimented.
2 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
As the second problem, there is an unstable mode unique to
axial HREs.

This mode is the only unstable mode in linear stability analyses
of their whole chambers.

In UVIHREs, it is not clear that this mode is also linearly unstable
or not.

In order to understand their linear stability, we are extending
the stability analysis technique.

To apply this technique for many conditions, their steady
analytical solution of main flows is needed.
Backgrounds (2)
3 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
The Purposes of Our Research
The purposes of our research are

to derive the analytical solution of main flow in UVIHREs.
to validate the analytical solution with a CFD result of an
UVIHRE.
4 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
Mathematical Model of the Engines
Combustion chamber schematics
Combustion chamber is cylindrical shape.
The oxidizer injector is set at the head end of the chamber
The scales of the parameters are set as
,
Length: , Port radius: , the width of injector :
In this research, nozzle effects are not considered.

Coordinate
Cylindrical coordinate

Assumptions of flow
Steady, incompressible, inviscid, and axisymmetric flow is
assumed.
These assumptions are used by the analytical solution of
bidirectional VIHREs by Majdalani et al.
The schematic of UVIHREs
o
x
i
d
i
z
e
r




f
u
e
l




0
5 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
Mathematical Model of the Engines
Governing equations










Practically, all we have to do is to solve circumferential vorticity transfer equa
tion.
In this research, flow function

is assumed to be separable of functions of

axial position and radial position .
Boundary conditions
6 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
Conservation Laws Normalized Equations Solutions
Mass
1

+
1

= 0

Circumferential
momentum

= 0

= (

)
Circumferential
vorticity

2
+
1

Inflow
Tangential and radial velocity of oxidizer from the injector
Radial velocity of fuel from the solid fuel
Other conditions
(extract)
Slip wall
Radial gradient of axial velocity at the wall (the connection
condition to the boundary layer)
oxidizer
f
u
e
l

()

The inflow conditions
Perturbation Solution Techniques
The vorticity transfer equation is nonlinear and cannot be solved exactly
with analytical techniques.
We use the perturbation solution technique with the scale of = /
2
.

Perturbation expansion
We derive the 1
st
order solution and the variables are expanded as

=
0

0
+
1

1

0
+
0

1
+

=
1

2
+
1

+
1

2
+
1

= +
1

1
+

Circumferential vorticity transfer equation is expanded as
0
th
order equation

0
2

3

1
st
order equation

2
0

3

7 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
Particular Solution
The detailed solution techniques are complex and omitted in this
presentation. ( written on our proceeding )

0
th
order particular solution
From 0
th
order equation and boundary conditions, we can get the particular
solution as

0
= 1 (

=
1

0
=

sin

sin

2
(0

)
sin

sin

( <

)

where

/
1+

1+

2

/

2
+

is boundary layer thickness and

is blowing parameter.

1
st
order particular solution

1
= 0,

1
= 0
From this result, we can understand the 0
th
order solution has the
1
st
order accuracy.

8 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
The 1
st
order circumferential velocity diverges at the center axis.
Around the center area, viscosity has to be considered.
We apply the viscous correction by means of a perturbation solution technique.
This technique adds the effects of the viscous terms around the center axis to the invscid
solution.
Modified governing equations





By changing =
2
/2as = , we can derive the 1
st
order equations.
In addition to these equations, with the 1
st
order solution of

and
Prandtls matching condition, we can derive the following correction.

= 1 exp

2 sin

/2

The corrected circumferential velocity converges to zero at the center axis.
Viscous Correction of Circumferential Velocity
9 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
Conservation Laws Normalized Equations
Circumferential momentum

= 2 2

2

Circumferential vorticity

2
4
2
= 2

=
1

2
+
1

( =

, 1)
Temperature Field
For the linear stability analyses, the 0
th
order temperature field is
also needed.

The added governing equation is energy conservation law.
From this equation, we derive the perturbation equation.
The newly introduced perturbation scale in it is a parameter of Prandtl
number and Reynolds number.

Assumptions of boundary conditions are
Constant temperature at the oxidizer injector
Linearly increasing wall temperature toward axial direction(boundary
combustion is assumed)

From these equations and assumptions, We can have derived the
particular 0
th
order solution.
10 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
The Comparison with Numerical Results
The analytical solution is compared with the CFD result with combustion by
Motoe et al.
This calculation is conducted in the same condition with the combustion
experiments by Yuasa et al.
The details of the calculation are as follows





The settings of the analytical solution





11 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
Conditions Unit Value
Port radius m 0.02
Port length m 0.5
Geometric swirl number
19.4
Reynolds number
6.17E+05
Oxidizer mass flow rate kg/s 0.2
Fuel regression rate m/s 7.50E-04
Injection pressure MPa 2
Temperature at the injector K 300
Temperature at the head wall of the fuel port K 2510
Temperature at the wall of the tail end of fuel port K 3000
Time accuracy

2nd order

Mesh dependent accuracy

5th order

Scheme of chemical reaction

Flamelet Approach/30 chemical species

Turbulence model

Implicit LES

The Radial Distributions of Axial Velocity near the Injector
The order of magnitude of the analytical results is the same as the one of the
CFD result.
The distribution of the analytical solution is almost constant toward the radial
direction.
However, the CFD result has an area of reverse flow at the center axis.
The analytical solution does not show this tendency.
12 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
-25.00
-20.00
-15.00
-10.00
-5.00
0.00
5.00
10.00
15.00
0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00
V
e
l
o
c
i
t
y
[
m
/
s
]
Normalized Radial Position
CFD result near the injector
Analytical solution at the exit of the
injector
Analytical solution at the 10% injector
width from the chamber head end
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
0.00
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
6.00
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
V
e
l
o
c
i
t
y

(
C
F
D
)
[
m
/
s
]
V
e
l
o
c
i
t
y
[
m
/
s
]
Normalized Radial Position
Analytical solution
Referential result (CFD)
The Radial Distribution of Axial Velocity in the Middle of the Fuel Port
The distributions of both method are almost constant toward radial direction.
The order of magnitude of the analytical result is far different from the one of
the CFD result.
In the analytical solution, heat of combustion is not changed into the axial
kinetic energy because of the ignorance of the compressibility.

13 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
The Radial Distributions of Centrifugal Velocity
In both distributions, the order of the analytical solution are relatively similar to
the ones of the CFD result.
This seems to be because, in axisymmetric condition, pressure term of
centrifugal momentum equation disappears and centrifugal velocity is not
accelerated.
However, around the center axis, the radial gradients are still steep because of
the ignorance of the turbulence.
14 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
V
e
l
o
c
i
t
y
[
m
/
s
]
Normalized Radial Position
Analytical solution near the injector
CFD result(the inlet of the fuel port)
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
V
e
l
o
c
i
t
y

m
/
s
]
Normalized Radial Position
Analytical solution in the
Fuel Port
CFD result(at the tail end of
the fuel port)
The Radial Distributions of Temperature
The analytical result is totally different from the CFD result.
In the CFD result, temperature around the center axis are higher than the wall
area.
On the other hand, in the analytical result, the highest temperature area is wall
area because boundary layer combustion is assumed.
The difference of the distributions seem to be caused by the reverse flow
around the injector which is caused by the rapid decline of vortex intensity by
the rapid acceleration of the axial velocity.
15 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
3,500
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e
[
K
]
Normalized Radial Position
Analytical result in
the tail of Fuel Port
CFD result at the exit
of the injector
CFD result at the tail
end of the fuel port
Summary
In this presentation, the analytical solution of the main flow of
UVIHREs is tried to be derived by means of the perturbation
solution techniques similar to Majdalanis method.

By the comparison with the CFD result including chemical reaction,
we have understood that the axial distribution of axial velocity and
the radial distribution of radial velocity are totally different from
the analytical solution.
This seems to be because compressibility, the conversion of chemical
reaction into kinetic energy, and turbulent flow are not considered in the
mathematical model.

There is some possibility to derive the reasonable solution of
centrifugal velocity distribution if turbulence correction is
considered around the center axis.
16 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014




Any Questions?
17 AJCPP 2014, Jeju, Korea, March 5-8, 2014