Aerospike nozzle contour design and its performance validation

Abstract 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 is approximated by two circular arcs and a parabola; the plug contour is approximated by a parabola and a third-order polynomial. The maximum total impulse from sea level to design altitude is adopted as objective to optimize the aerospike nozzle contour. Experimental studies were performed on a 6-cell tile-shaped aerospike nozzle, a 1-cell linear aerospike nozzle and a 3-cell aerospike nozzle with round-to-rectangle (RTR) primary nozzles designed by method proposed in present paper. Three aerospike nozzles achieved good altitude compensation capacities in the tests and still had better performance at off-design altitudes compared with that of the bell-shaped nozzle. In cold-flow tests, 6-cell tile-shaped aerospike nozzle and 1-cell linear aerospike nozzle obtained high thrust efficiency at design altitude. Employing gas H 2 /gas O 2 (GH 2 /GO 2 ) as propellants, hot-firing tests were carried out on a 3-cell aerospike nozzle engine with RTR primary nozzles. The performance was obtained under two nozzle pressure ratios (NPR) lower than design altitude. Efficiency reached 92.0–93.5% and 95.0–96.0%, respectively. Pressure distribution along plug ramp was measured and the effects of variation in the amount of base bleed on performance were also examined in the tests.

[1]  Liu Yu,et al.  Performance analysis of linear clustered aerospike nozzles , 2004 .

[2]  B. V. Leer,et al.  Towards the ultimate conservative difference scheme V. A second-order sequel to Godunov's method , 1979 .

[3]  Guozhou Zhang,et al.  Experimental investigation on aerospike nozzle in different structures and working conditions , 2001 .

[4]  W. Solano,et al.  The future of full-scale propulsion testing , 2001 .

[5]  Dai Wu Numerical and experimental study of tile-shaped aerospike nozzles , 2002 .

[6]  Seokkwan Yoon,et al.  Numerical study of chemically reacting flows using a lower-upper symmetric successive overrelaxation scheme , 1989 .

[7]  Takeo Tomita,et al.  An experimental evaluation of plug nozzle flow field , 1996 .

[8]  Klaus Bremhorst,et al.  A Modified Form of the k-ε Model for Predicting Wall Turbulence , 1981 .

[9]  Hans Immich,et al.  STATUS OF THE FESTIP ROCKET PROPULSION TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMME , 1997 .

[10]  Liu Yu,et al.  AEROSPIKE NOZZLE PERFORMANCE STUDY AND ITS CONTOUR OPTIMIZATION , 2001 .

[11]  G. Angelino,et al.  Approximate method for plug nozzle design , 1964 .

[12]  Masaki Sasaki,et al.  An experimental study on a 14 kN linear aerospike-nozzle combustor , 1999 .

[13]  Stephen A. Whitmore,et al.  A Base Drag Reduction Experiment on the X-33 Linear Aerospike SR-71 Experiment (LASRE) Flight Program , 1999 .

[14]  M. Calabro,et al.  PLUG NOZZLES: SUMMARY OF FLOW FEATURES AND ENGINE PERFORMANCE , 2002 .

[15]  S. V. Baftalovskii,et al.  Optimal design of self-controlled spike nozzles and their thrust determination at start , 1999 .

[16]  Liu Yu,et al.  Effects of free stream on flowfield and performance of linear aerospike nozzle , 2006 .

[17]  Liu Yu Studies on Base Pressure Model of Aerospike Nozzle , 2005 .

[18]  Hideo Mori,et al.  Experimental Analyses of Linear-Type Aerospike Nozzles with and without Sidewalls , 2005 .

[19]  Bin Ma,et al.  Analytical and experimental studies of tile-shaped aerospike nozzles , 2003 .

[20]  Takeo Tomita,et al.  Flow field of clustered plug nozzles , 1997 .

[21]  Joe D. Hoffman,et al.  Design of Maximum Thrust Nozzle Contours by Direct Optimization Methods , 1981 .