Date of Award

Summer 1990

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

Program/Concentration

Mechanical Engineering

Committee Director

S. K. Chaturvedi

Committee Member

A. S. Roberts, Jr.

Committee Member

S. N. Tiwari

Call Number for Print

Special Collections; LD4331.E56W43

Abstract

The mixing characteristic of a liquid oxygen (LOX) injector operating under nonideal thermodynamics conditions are analyzed. Oxygen, in supercritical state, is injected into a high pressure airstream flowing through a narrow annulus region of a hypersonic wind tunnel. The objective of the present study is to investigate conditions that would help produce a uniform profile of oxygen concentration at the end of a diverging mixing channel, located downstream of the injector section. Uniformity of oxygen concentration profile is critical to combustion processes that occur downstream of the LOX injector section.

The coupled velocity, temperature, oxygen concentration and enthalpy fields are computed by solving the transport equations for mass, momentum and energy. The turbulence effects are modeled by the two equation k-c turbulence model. The nonideal gas behavior is modeled by employing the Redlich-Kwong equation of state. The energy equation, written in terms of mixture enthalpy, is simplified by applying the ideal solution limit to the oxygen-nitrogen mixture. The governing equations in axi-symmetric form are solved by employing the finite volume method, and the resultant algebraic equations are linearized by the "SIMPLER" algorithm. A computer program based on "SIMPLER" algorithm is developed and applied to the cases involving simple parallel channel geometry, and constant density turbulent flows. However, for more complex geometry cases, and for cases involving large variation of density, the "FLUENT" code is used. The effects of LOX injector geometry, ambient turbulence intensity and injection angle are analyzed. The results indicate that for the chosen geometrical and operational parameters, a nearly uniform profile of 0 2 concentration is obtained at the end of the mixing channel.

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DOI

10.25777/ymyr-c087

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