Quantifying the Variation of Mass Flow Rate generated in a Simplex Swirl Injector by the Pressure Fluctuation for Injector Dynamics Research

When the heat release and acoustic pressure fluctuations are generated in the combustor by irregular combustion, these fluctuations affect the mass flow rate of the propellants injected through the injectors. Also, the variations of the mass flow rate by these fluctuations again bring about irregular combustion and furthermore that is related with combustion instability. Therefore, it is very important to identify the mass variation for the pressure fluctuation on the injector and to investigate its transfer function. So, we first have studied quantifying the variation of mass flow rate generated in simplex swirl injector by injection pressure fluctuation. To acquire the transient mass flow rate in orifice with time, we have tried to measure of the flow axial velocity and liquid film thickness in orifice. The axial velocity is acquired through theoretical approach after measuring the pressure in orifice and the flow area in the orifice is measured by electric conductance method. As results, mass flow rate calculated by axial velocity and liquid film thickness measuring in orifice accorded with mass flow rate acquired by direct measuring method in the small error range within 1 percents in steady state and within 6 percents as average mass flow rate in pulsated state. Hence this method can be used to measure the mass flow rate not only in steady state but also in unsteady state because the mass flow rate in the orifice can acquire with time and this method shows very high accuracy based on the experimental results.