CFD Simulation of Axisymmetric CH4–LOX Rocket Combustion Chamber & Nozzle
- ANSYS Fluent
- GRI-Mech 3.0
- SST k-ω
Finite-rate chemistry simulation of a methane–LOX combustion chamber and MOC-contoured supersonic nozzle, with a mesh-independence study.
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- Simulated an axisymmetric gaseous methane–liquid oxygen rocket combustion chamber and supersonic nozzle (Method-of-Characteristics-contoured geometry) using finite-rate chemistry (GRI-Mech 3.0, 20-species mechanism) with a non-premixed steady diffusion flamelet model and SST k-ω turbulence closure.
- Built and verified a 34,060-cell structured mesh (minimum orthogonal quality 0.72) through a mesh-independence study against a roughly 60,000-cell refinement, confirming under 2% variation in peak temperature and turbulence kinetic energy.
- Resolved pressure (−2.04×104 to 5.25×106 Pa), temperature (300 to 3,440 K), and velocity (214 to 2,130 m/s) fields, capturing flow acceleration from the subsonic chamber through the sonic throat to supersonic nozzle expansion.
- Identified unmodeled conjugate heat transfer (adiabatic wall assumption) and thermal-structural coupling as limitations and future work.
