Validation of Conjugate Heat Transfer Model for Rocket Cooling with Supercritical Methane

Abstract

A numerical solver able to describe a rocket engine cooling channel fed with supercritical methane is validated against experimental data coming from a test article conceived and tested by the Italian Aerospace Research Center. The multidimensional conjugate heat transfer model numerically solves the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations for the coolant flow and the Fourier’s law of conduction for the heat transfer within the wall. In this study, an experimental test case is reproduced in detail in order to evaluate the influence of partially unknown parameters, such as surface roughness and wall thermal conductivity, and of operative parameter uncertainty, such as the coolant mass flow rate and input heat transfer rate. The comparison made with respect to the wall temperature and coolant pressure drop of the whole set of experimental data provides complementary information that allows better understanding of experiments and infers possible deviations from the expected behavior.