• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2004.03a
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• pp.165-172
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• 2004

LE-7A is the main engine of the H-IIA launch vehicle. Under its development, the nozzle suffered from two troubles during startup and shutdown transients of the engine. One is a large side load, which damages the actuator of the nozzle, and the other is damage on regenerative cooling tubes due to high heat load. It has been considered that these problems are caused by a peculiar separation pattern called Restricted Shock Separation (RSS). RSS is observed in several rocket nozzles, for example, LE-7A nozzle, Vulcain nozzle and so on. Their contours are not conventional truncated perfect (TP) nozzle - LE-7A nozzle is a compressed truncated perfect (CTP) nozzle and Vulcain nozzle is a thrust optimized (TO) nozzle. Although it is believed that the occurrence of RSS is affected by the nozzle contour, the mechanisms are not clarified sufficiently yet. In the present paper, a parametric numerical study is carried out to investigate the mechanisms of the occurrence of RSS in CTP nozzles during startup transient. The results show that RSS is caused by the adverse pressure gradient downstream of the Mach disk. The adverse pressure gradient is caused by the interaction of the pressure wave and Mach disk. The method to avoid the occurrence of RSS is also examined. A small step inside the nozzle affects the position of the separation point and prevents RSS. The result shows that the possibility that RSS can be suppressed by controlling the position of the separation point.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.315-319
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• 2009

Investigation of the lateral force fluctuations in an axisymmetric overexpanded compressed truncated perfect (CTP) nozzle for the shutdown transient is presented. These nozzles experience side-loads during start-up and shut-down operations, because of the flow separation at nozzle walls. Two types of flow separations such as free shock separation (FSS) and restricted shock separation (RSS) shock structure occur. A two-dimensional unsteady numerical simulation has been carried out over an axisymmetric CTP nozzle to simulate the lateral force fluctuations in nozzle during shutdown process. Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equations are numerically solved using a fully implicit finite volume scheme. Governing equations are solved by coupled implicit scheme. Two equation k-$\omega$ SST turbulence model is selected. Unsteady pressure is measured at four locations along the nozzle wall. Present pressure variation compared well with the experimental data. During shutdown transient, separation pattern varies from FSS to RSS and finally returns to FSS. Several pressure peaks are observed during the RSS separation pattern. These pressure peaks generate lateral force or side loads in rocket nozzle.