Simulation of Single-Injector Methane Rocket Combustor Using Different Numerical Codes

Abstract

A single-injector methane combustion chamber is simulated using two different computational fluid dynamic codes: TAU and Fluent, density-based and pressure-based solvers, respectively. The simulated test case is the capacitively-cooled rocket combustor fed with gaseous methane and oxygen and operated at pressure of 19 bar. The aim of the simultaneous simulations is to compare the performance of the two algorithms of solving the Navier–Stokes equations: density-based and pressure-based. Earlier the densitybased and pressure-based approaches have not been compared at rocket engine conditions. The simulations were carried out using the same mesh and as much as possible similar setups. Both simulations, TAU and Fluent, agree with each other and with the experimental data well. The Fluent pressure-based solver has showed much faster convergence than the TAU density-based solver due to a larger pseudo-time step and the really two-dimensional setup.