Optimization of Geometric Parameters of Cryogenic Liquid Rocket Combustion Chamber

Abstract

A method for the optimization of rocket combustion chamber walls with respect to the life time is presented. This method can be split into four main parts: P1) Determination of the thermal field within the combustion chamber wall and the cooling channel during the hot run phase by a steady state thermo-fluid mechanical analysis. P2) Analysis of the nonlinear deformation of the combustion chamber wall under cyclic thermal and mechanical loading. P3) Estimation of the life time of the combustion chamber wall by a post processing method. P4) Application of a mathematical optimization procedure. This strategy is used to analyse the thermal load induced deformation process and life time of a typical rocket combustion chamber and to optimise selected geometry parameters of the combustion chamber wall. As one of the objectives of the presented work is a recommendation for the choice of a suitable and efficient optimization procedure for the given problem class, two different methods are compared: A standard Conjugate Gradient method and an efficient gradient free optimization procedure.