DLR Project TAUROS: TAU for Rocket Thrust Chamber Simulation

Abstract

The present work gives a brief overview of the DLR (German Aerospace Center) project TAUROS (TAU for Rocket Thrust Chamber Simulation). The DLR project TAUROS is a collaboration between three different DLR institutes, and is funded by the DLR Space Research Programmatic. The project focuses on the qualification and advancement of the DLR flow solver TAU for liquid rocket thrust chamber application. The main objective of TAUROS is to ensure an independent DLR competence in the numerical modeling of space propulsion systems and their components. The collaboration bundles the DLR competences in the field of development and application of numerical methods for liquid space propulsion systems, and in the field of development and operation of research rocket thrust chambers. This ensures a verification and validation of the developed numerical methods independent from external sources. In detail the project addresses the strong coupling between reactive flows, thermal environment, and structure loads. Therefore, the project is split into the main work packages combustion chamber, thrust nozzle, thrust chamber wall cooling, and test facilities. The highlights of the achieved progress in these work packages are described in the present publication.