TITLE : COLD FLOW NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF A TWO-DIMENSIONAL NOZZLELESS SOLID ROCKET MOTOR

BY : Aerospatiale - J F Chauvot

DETAILS :

• PHOENICS has been used to simulate the flow in a nozzleless solid rocket motor
• Two-Dimensional steady flow
• k-e turbulence model used.

NOTES :

• Both inviscid and turbulent computations were done.
• The results are compared with experimental pressure and velocity data.
• There is one-dimensional solution to this problem, which is also compared with the experimental results.

The pictures are as follows:
Experimental apparatus
Computational domain and close-up of the grid used for the turbulent computations.
Pressure distribution vs normalised axial distance.Both experimental and PHOENICS results are shown.
Axial velocity component vs normalised axial distance, on the symmetry axis.

DISCUSSION:

• The pressure is well predicted by all the models when the flow is laminar (x/L < 0.6).
• In the turbulent region (x/L > 0.6) the turbulent PHOENICS solution gives the most accurate results.
• When the measurements of velocity are compared, the turbulent PHOENICS solution gives extremely good results at all points along the chamber.