• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.303-306
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• 2007

A engineering analysis has been conducted to study operating characteristics of a supersonic exhaust diffuser simulating high altitude atmosphere from a flow-developing point of view. Emphasis is placed in the detail flow structure resulting from several design- and operating- parameters of the diffuser such as the area ratios of a exhaust nozzle to the diffuser, the vacuum chamber size, and jet pressure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.344-352
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• 2006

Evacuation performance, starting transient, and plume blowback at diffuser breakdown of a straight cylindrical supersonic exhaust diffuser with no externally supplied secondary flow are investigated. Pressure records in the transitional periods are measured by a small-scale cold-gas simulator. Flow-fields evolving in the diffuser-type ejector are solved by preconditioned Favre-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with a low-Reynolds number $k-{\varepsilon}$ turbulence model edited for turbulence compressibility effects. The present RANS method is properly validated with measured static wall pressure distributions and evacuation level at steady operation as well as the pressure records during the transition regime.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.200-203
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• 2011

Supersonic ejectors are simple mechanical components, which generally perform mixing and recompression of two fluid streams. Ejectors have found many applications in engineering. In aerospace engineering, they are used for high altitude testing (HAT) of a propulsion system by reducing the pressure of a test chamber. It is composed of three major sections: a vacuum test chamber, a propulsive nozzle, and a supersonic exhaust diffuser (SED). This paper aims at the improvement in HAT facility by focusing attention on the vertical firing rocket test stand with shock generators. Shock generators are mounted inside the SED for improving the pressure recovery. The results clearly showed that the performance of the ejector-diffuser system was improved with the addition of shock generators. The improvement comes in the form of reduction of the starting pressure ratio and the vertical height of test stand. It is also shown that shock generators are useful in reducing the total pressure loss in the SED.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.46-55
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• 2005

For the sea-level performance test of rocket motor designed to operate in the upper atmosphere, ejectors with no induced secondary flow are generally used, which serves dual purposes of evacuating the test cell and performing as a supersonic exhaust diffuser (SED). The main concern of this research is to simulate starting transients in order to visualize evolution of internal shock structures in SED with different initial cell (vacuum chamber) pressures. RANS code with low Reynolds $k-\varepsilon$ turbulence model was employed for these computations. Numerical results were compared with the pressure measurements previously performed [Proceedings of 2004 Annual Conference, KIMST], and showed good agreements with pressure-time history of measured data. In the case of low vacuum chamber pressure, abrupt impingement of the under-expanded supersonic jet from the nozzle onto the diffuser wall was observed, whereas initial impingement point was located downstream and moved slowly upstream in the case of non-vacuum chamber pressure. In spite of initially dissimilar evolution of shock structures, iso-mach contour revealed that the steady shock structures had little difference except the location of flow separation and normal shock.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.349-352
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• 2010

A study is analyzed on the transient flow of supersonic diffuser and performed on the of supersonic diffuser with Computational Fluid Dynamic. The flow field of supersonic diffuser is calculated using Axisymmetric two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equation with $k-{\epsilon}$ turbulence model. The transient simulation is compared in terms of mach number and temperature of vacuum chamber according to the chamber pressure of starting transient on Liquid rocket engine.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.16-23
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• 2008

Theoretical and numerical approaches were conducted in order to study supersonic exhaust diffusers to simulate high altitude performance of rockets on the ground. A physical model of concern includes a rocket motor, vacuum chamber, and diffuser, which have axisymmetric configurations. An analysis was conducted to investigate operation characteristics of supersonic exhaust diffusers from a flow-development point of view. Emphasis was placed on theoretical formulation to predict the starting pressure of diffusers, the effect of the vacuum chamber size, and the minimum starting pressure of the rocket motor to start the diffuser.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.321-325
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• 2010

Supersonic ejectors are simple mechanical components, which generally perform mixing and/or recompression of two fluid streams. Ejectors have found many applications in engineering. In aerospace engineering, they are used for altitude testing of a propulsion system by reducing the pressure of a test chamber. It is composed of three major sections: a vacuum test chamber, a propulsive nozzle, and a supersonic exhaust diffuser. This paper aims at the improvement of ejector-diffuser performance by focusing attention on reducing exhaust back flow into the test chamber, since alteration of the backflow or recirculation pattern appears as one of the potential means of significantly improving low supersonic ejector-diffuser performance. The simplest backflow-reduction device was an orifice plate at the duct inlet, which would pass the jet and entrained fluid but impede the movement of fluid upstream along the wall. Results clearly showed that the performance of ejector-diffuser system was improved for certain a range of system pressure ratios, whereas the orifice plate was detrimental to the ejector performance for higher pressure ratios. It is also found that there is no change in the performance of diffuser with orifice at its inlet, in terms of its pressure recovery. Hence an appropriately sized orifice system should produce considerable improvement in the ejector-diffuser performance in the intended range of pressure ratios.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.70-78
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• 2014

A numerical study has been conducted to investigate flow and heat transfer characteristics of supersonic second throat exhaust diffusers for high altitude simulation. By changing pressure and configuration, flow and cooling characteristics of the diffuser have been studied. At the normal operation of the diffuser, there were high temperature regions over 3,000 K without cooling, especially near wall and in subsonic diffuser part. If the cooling system of the diffuser is added, flow velocity is increased due to the cooled wall temperature.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.318-322
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• 2009

Supersonic ejectors are simple mechanical components, which generally perform mixing and/or recompression of two fluid streams. Ejectors have found many applications in engineering. In aerospace engineering, they are used for altitude testing of a propulsion system by reducing the pressure of a test chamber. It is composed of three major sections: a vacuum test chamber, a propulsive nozzle, and a supersonic exhaust diffuser. This paper aims at the improvement of ejector-diffuser performance by focusing attention on reducing exhaust back flow into the test chamber, since alteration of the backflow or recirculation pattern appears as one of the potential means of significantly improving low supersonic ejector-diffuser performance. The simplest backflow-reduction device was an orifice plate at the duct inlet, which would pass the jet and entrained fluid but impede the movement of fluid upstream along the wall. Results clearly showed that the performance of ejector-diffuser system was improved for certain a range of system pressure ratios, where as there was no appreciable transition in the performance for lower pressure ratios and the orifice plate was detrimental to the ejector performance for higher pressure ratios. It is found that an appropriately sized orifice system should produce considerable improvement in the ejector-diffuser performance in the intended range of pressure ratios.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.117-121
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• 2012

Upper stage propulsion system designed for operation in the upper atmosphere should be tested under nozzle full flow conditions to verify its performance on the ground. KARI has carried out high altitude simulation test of KSLV-I kick motor using cylindrical supersonic exhaust diffuser. Also cold and hot flow test for the sub-scaled diffuser have been conducted to verify the design of real scale diffuser and to study its operating characteristics. This paper deals with the results obtained from these high altitude simulation tests.