• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.46-52
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• 2017

High-frequency combustion instabilities may occur during the development of feasible engine combustors. These instabilities can result in irreparable damages to the wall of combustors or the degradation of engine performance. So, it is essential to identify injectors that have high stability characteristics during the early stages of development. The objective of present study was to assess the stability of coaxial injectors and an impinging injector with different recess lengths in order to develop stable injectors optimally. Stability margin was evaluated based on the distance from operating condition to the unstable regions. A simulating combustion test method was used to analyze the stability of injectors. A small-scale combustion chamber was designed to simulate the first tangential acoustic mode of the actual combustor. Gaseous oxygen and a mixture of methane and propane were used as simulant propellants to satisfy their flow similarity to the actual propellants of a combustor in a liquid rocket combustor. The results indicated that injectors having small recess lengths showed relatively large combustion stability margins. For the injectors of large recess lengths, instability regions with large and super-large amplitude oscillations were observed. Thus, injector with shorter recess lengths had a higher stability than that of longer one due to the different mixing processes.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2014.11a
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• pp.153-156
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• 2014

This study was aimed to assess combustion stability for coaxial swirl injector and FOOF impinging injector which would be candidates in liquid rocket engine combustors. Simulating combustion tests under atmospheric condition have been conducted by gaseous oxygen and the mixture of methane and propane, using two actual injectors. By analyzing the measured dynamic pressure signals, we have evaluated the combustion stability margin of both injectors by drawing a stability map.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.60-66
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• 2014

As a evaluation method of combustion stability in a liquid rocket engine thrust chamber, external disturbance devices are used. In the paper, the study on pulse-gun ignition tests for a combustion stability rating test of a thrust chamber was performed. Charging volume of pulse-guns was determined by confirming the intensities of the pressure waves from the ignition tests in the cold-flow conditions. While using same injector head, combustion instabilities were not encountered during 14 hot-firing tests without pulse-guns but combustion instabilities were triggered by pulse-gun ignition during 2 hot-firing tests. The results showed that the pulse-gun ignition test could be the evaluation method and could reduce the hot-firing test number for the stability rating of a thrust chamber.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.15-20
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• 2009

Hot-firing tests were performed on two 30 tonf-class regenerative cooling combustion chambers, with different injector distribution and wall cooling method. In the paper, the combustion stability test results were analyzed and presented. The pressure fluctuation and stability rating test(SRT) results of the combustion chambers were examined to evaluate combustion stability. The combustion chambers exhibited satisfactory results on combustion stability. The RMS values of the chamber pressure fluctuation were less than 3% of the chamber pressure and the decay time of artificial pressure peaks was measured to be around 10% of the reference decay time. It is interesting that the RMS values of pressure fluctuation in the combustion chamber with film cooling are smaller than those in the chamber with cooling injectors at the periphery row.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.67-75
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• 2002

A study to investigate the influence of combustion chamber shape, especially piston top face configuration, on the combustion stability is presented with CFD analysis and single cylinder GDI engine test. Initial configuration of the piston bowl was designed with CFD analysis and further parametric studies of the design factors on the piston top face were carried out through the single cylinder GDI engine test. It was found that both the geometry of piston top face and the compression ratio have great influences on the combustion stability. Of interest is that the design factors of the GDI piston to prevent mixture diffusion out of the piston bowl have important roles for the stable combustion at the stratified mixture condition. Also the relationship between spray impingement and flow pattern in a GDI piston bowl should be considered to design an optimal bowl configuration for stable stratified combustion.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.1821-1832
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• 2005

This study realizes the conceptual method to predict combustion instability in actual full-scale combustion chamber of rocket engines by experimental tests with model (sub-scale) chamber. The model chamber was designed based on the methodologies proposed in the previous work regarding geometrical dimensions and operating conditions, and hot-fire test procedures were followed to obtain stability boundaries. From the experimental tests, two instability regions are presented by the parameters of combustion-chamber pressure and mixture (oxidizer/fuel) ratio, which are customary for combustor designers. It is found that instability characteristics in the chamber with the adopted jet injectors can be explained by the correlation between the characteristic burning or mixing time and the characteristic acoustic time: In each instability region, dynamic behaviors of flames are investigated to verify the hydrodynamically-derived characteristic lengths of the jet injectors. Large-amplitude pressure oscillation observed in upper instability region is found to be generated by lifted-off flames.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2012.04a
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• pp.77-78
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• 2012

To predict combustion instability in actual full-scale combustion chamber of rocket engines, air-injection test is proposed with scaling techniques. From the data, damping factors have been obtained as a function of hydraulic parameter and the data give us instability map. Two instability regions are presented and it is found that they coincide reasonably with them from hot-fire test with full-scale flow rates. Accordingly, the proposed approach can be applied cost-effectively to stability rating of jet injectors when mixing of fuel and oxidizer jets is the dominant process in instability triggering.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.874-881
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• 2006

Combustion stability characteristics in actual full-scale combustion chamber of a rocket engine are investigated by experimental tests with the model (sub-scale) chamber. The present hot-fire tests adopt the combustion chamber with three configurations of triplet impinging-jet injectors such as F-O-O-F, F-O-F, and O-F-O configurations. Combustion stability bound-aries are obtained and presented by the parameters of combustion-chamber pressure and mixture (oxidizer/fuel) ratio. From the experimental tests, two instability regions are observed and the pressure oscillations have the similar patterns irrespective of injector configuration. But, the O-F-O injector configuration shows broader upper-instability region than the other configurations. To verify the instability mechanism for the lower and upper instability regions, air-purge acoustic test is conducted and the photograph or the flames is taken. As a result, it is found that the pressure oscillations in the two regions can be characterized by the first impinging point of hydraulic jets and pre-blowout combustion, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.99-106
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• 2005

The SRT(stability rating test) technique, which is indispensable for the development of a LRE(liquid rocket engine), essentially requires a development of a combustion test sequence as well as artificial perturbation devices. For the development of an indigenous SRT technique, several combustion tests of sub-scale LRE were performed to search a proper combustion test sequence. At first, a pressure-wave inducing device which is used for adapting pulse gun was designed and a cooling gas supply system for the pressure-wave inducing device was set up to prevent a malfunction of pulse gun. Through the several combustion tests which included cooling procedure of a pressure-wave inducing device, a proper combustion test sequence was found out. It did not make any significant disturbance at normal combustion process. Finally, an indigenous SRT technique has been developed successfully.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.240-246
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• 2005

A series of combustion tests of a 30-tonf-class full scale liquid rocket thrust chamber under development has been carried out to verify its design. The test results revealed decent performance in the aspects of efficiency. The combustion stability is one of the most important parameters of liquid rocket engine in addition to the efficiency. Assessment tests of combustion stability must be accomplished to confirm the possibility of combustion instability due to spontaneous or external disturbances. The combustion stability rating tests of the full scale thrust chamber with temporary baffles made of stainless steel were carried out utilizing pulse guns to estimate combustion stability characteristics. The tests results show highly stable combustion stability characteristics. The outcome acquired from the present experimental study will be used to design an actively cooled baffle that can survive for the life time operation of the thrust chamber.