Computational Analysis of High-Pressure Nitrogen Jets from Transcritical to Supercritical Gas-Like Conditions

• Autor(a) principal: Magalhães, Leandro
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Silva, André, Barata, Jorge M M
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/12150
• topic: Nitrogen; Propulsion; Rocket engines; Rockets; High pressure nitrogen; Liquid rocket engines; Nitrogen jets; Pressure and temperature; Supercritical condition; Supercritical gas; Supercritical state; Transcritical

A fluid is considered to be in a supercritical state if its pressure and temperature are above their critical point values, which can be regarded as identifiers of pure fluid. However, in the thrust chamber of liquid rocket engines, the propellant mixture is a reality, which albeit being injected at supercritical conditions, can lead to local transcritical behavior, meaning that the mixture temperature can have values below its critical point condition. As such, an accurate numerical solver aiming at characterizing the flow inside the combustion chamber of liquid rocket engines needs to replicate transcritical behavior. The present study is focused on the analysis of nitrogen jets under transcritical and supercritical conditions. While a greater approximation to the experiments is obtained for the tested supercritical conditions, insights are obtained into transcritical behavior and the transition between transcritical and supercritical jet behavior.