• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.19-26
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• 2019

Paraffin fuels usually have low combustion efficiency due to discharged unburnt droplets from the nozzle. Therefore, optimization of the post-chamber is becoming an important factor for performance. In this study, combustion experiments were conducted by changing either the length or diameter of the post-chamber to reveal the combustion behavior of paraffin fuel for hybrid rocket. As a result, the combustion efficiency improved due to the increase of the residence time as the post-chamber length increased. On the other hand, it is found that the influence of the diameter change was not significant compared with the case of variable post-chamber length.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.339-347
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• 2022

The post chamber in hybrid rocket is installed to induce additional increase in combustion enthalpy by allowing continuous burning of the liquefied fuels. When paraffin wax fuel is used, unsteady pressure oscillations are observed only at the beginning of combustion. This study intends to investigate the effect of additional combustion of liquefied fuel droplets on the occurrence of unsteady pressure fluctuations. For this, the combustion in post-chamber was visualized and image analysis using POD(Proper Orthogonal Decomposition) technique was performed. In addition, the hypothesis was proposed on the occurrence of unsteady pressure oscillations by identifying the modes including the behavior of droplets through mode reconstruction. Conducting a series of combustion tests, the amount of liquefied fuel flowing into the post chamber and the generation of fuel droplets were controlled. Also, the changes in frequency characteristic of unsteady pressure oscillation were monitored. As a result, the unsteady pressure oscillations observed in paraffin wax combustion were the result of additional combustion of fuel droplets generated in the post chamber.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.43 no.8
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• pp.677-683
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• 2015

Hybrid rocket combustion displays low frequency instability(LFI, 10~30Hz) at a certain condition. Vortex shedding in the post-chamber is suspected to cause the occurrence of LFI. This study focused on the visualization of flow image using light emissions from high temperature combustion gas. Results shows that combustion pressure oscillates at a frequency of about 18 Hz, which is in phase with oscillations of light emission. Since LFI is not a property of thermo-acoustic instability, this result suggested there exists a physical coupling of pressure fluctuations with light emissions proportional to chemical reaction. Also POD analysis shows that dominant symmetric spatial modes in the stable combustion shift suddenly into asymmetric spatial pattern with the appearance of LFI. Especially, the appearance of mode 3 is a typical change of flow dynamics in unstable combustion representing a rotational fluid motions associated with vortex shedding.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.46 no.7
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• pp.567-574
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• 2018

Swirl injection induces not only the increase in fuel regression rate but also the reduction of combustion pressure oscillation. This acts, in turn, to stabilize combustion process. Thus, this study primarily focuses on the change in flow structure in the main chamber by swirl injection. Then examining the change in flow structure was done to understand the physical process for stabilizing combustion. In the results, the application of swirl injection could suppress the generation of p' and q' in 500Hz band and could shift the phase difference and cross correlation. Further investigations with combustion visualization also show that the development of helical motion near surface region affects the small-sized vortex generation and shedding yielding combustion stabilization eventually.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2014

Hybrid rocket displays many different low frequency pressure oscillations during combustion. Thermal lag between solid and gas phase is the primary mechanism to trigger low frequency pressure oscillations of around 10Hz, and Helmholtz or $L^*$ mode also produces other types of low frequency oscillations above 10 Hz which is associated with the change in combustion volume. Since the flow characteristics in hybrid rocket is very similar to those in solid rocket combustion, it is not surprising to observe similar pressure oscillation behaviors. Experimental test shows that combustion pressure suddenly turns into to a big amplitude oscillation around 10Hz then followed by returning to an original pressure level after a short period combustion. Further investigations show that this instability is independent of the change in O/F ratio at all. One of the possible candidates is the vortex shedding dynamics over the backward step in the post combustion chamber. It is required to investigate the low frequency oscillation mechanism in the future study.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.50 no.11
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• pp.783-789
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• 2022

In a recent study, it was observed that the combustion gas entering the post chamber of a hybrid rocket contains vortices with very small size and high frequency characteristics. In addition, it was observed that small vortices collided with the nozzle wall to create a counter-flow, resulting in additional combustion with ignition delay. This study investigated the physical relationship between ignition delay induced by the counter-flow and the formation of beating pressure. To do this, a newly modified model was proposed by including ignition delay in the existing energy kicked oscillator model proposed by Culick. Numerical results show that the ignition delay is an important factor in determining the occurrence of the combustion pressure beats through the periodic formation of thermoacoustic coupling. In addition, when the ignition delay was reduced by increasing the post chamber length, the phase difference between the energy kick and the pressure generation was increased, the periodic pressure beats did not occur at all.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.46 no.12
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• pp.1021-1027
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• 2018

Experimental studies have been conducted to verify that the positive coupling between pressure oscillation (p') and combustion oscillation (q') of high frequency range is a prerequisite for the initiation of low frequency instability in hybrid rocket combustion. The post-chamber length and combustion equivalence ratio were selected as critical parameters to control the phase difference between p' and q', and p' amplitude in relation to the suppression of LFI. In the results, even if the post-chamber length increases, the phase difference between p' and q' maintains below pi/2, which is a necessary condition for the LFI development, but the amplification of RI (Rayleigh index) was substantially decreased leading to a stable combustion. In addition, results confirmed that combustion stability is achieved by changing the momentary equivalence ratio and/or by suppressing the positive coupling status of p' and q'. Thus, the periodic amplification of RI was identified as the middle path of the mechanism of occurrence of LFI.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.60-67
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• 2019

To understand the low frequency instability(LFI) characteristics in hybrid rockets combustion, effects of equivalence ratio variations on the phase shift between pressure and heat release oscillations were investigated by using the direct numerical simulation. The change in the equivalence ratio of the main chamber was simulated by the temperature and composition variation of the combustion gas introduced into the post-combustion chamber. In the results, additional combustion appeared along with vortex generation at the backward step, and combustion pressure and heat release oscillations were observed as the vortex moved. In addition, the results confirmed that the phase difference between the pressure and heat release oscillation shifts because of the changes in the propagation velocity of pressure wave as the temperature of combustion gas changes.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.40-47
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• 2013

The similarity in internal flow of solid and hybrid rocket suggests that hybrid rocket combustion can be susceptible to instability due to vortex sheddings and their interaction. This study focuses on the evolution of interaction of vortex generated in pre-chamber with other types of vortex in the combustor and the change of combustion characteristics. Baseline and other results tested with disks show that there are five different frequency bands appeared in spectral domain. These include a frequency with thermal lag of solid fuel, vortex shedding due to obstacles such as forward, backward facing step and wall vortices near surface. The comparison of frequency behavior in the cases with disk 1 and 3 reveals that vortex shedding generated in pre-chamber can interact with other types of vortex shedding at a certain condition. The frequency of Helmholtz mode is one of candidates resulting to a resonance when it was excited by other types of oscillation even if this mode was not discernable in baseline test. This selective mechanism of resonance may explain the reason why non-linear combustion instability occurs in hybrid rocket combustion.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.44 no.7
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• pp.585-592
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• 2016

Visualization was done by using $CH^*$ chemiluminescence images and PMT measurements in order to understand the origin of fluctuating pressure and chemical luminosity at about 500 Hz frequency even in stable combustion, which was observed in recent experimental tests, and to find the physical correlation leading to Low Frequency Instability(LFI) in terms of phase angle. In stable combustion, chemical reactions are distributed along the shear layer flow showing a negative coupling(about 180 degree in phase angle) with combustion pressure. However, phase difference is shifted to a positive coupling showing less than 90 degree in unstable case. Also a periodic change in the distribution of chemical reactions is observed along with local flame extinction and the appearance of big scale vortex flow. In the transition to LFI, local flame extinction and small vortex flow start to appear in a row. As seen in the bluff body wake in reactive flow, the periodic appearance of vortex flow seems to share the same physical process of BVK(Bernard Von Karman) instability generation. Thus, the appearance of local extinction in 500 Hz fluctuations is gradually amplified to complete extinctions of about 20 Hz, and it leads into LFI.