Hydrocarbon Cold-Flow Simulation of LOX/LH2 Rocket Aerodynamics

The most unique aspect of this project is the use of a non-reacting hydrocarbon gas to match Reynolds and Mach numbers simultaneously with a physical scale on the order of 1%. Legacy-style steam and nitrogen cold-flow tests match neither, and even \u2018ideal' 20%-scale hot-fire subscale tests do not match Reynolds number. If everything checks out experimentally, this innovation could move SSC from requiring million-dollar, year-of-planning subscale test programs to validate basic diffuser design and performance to a test rig simple enough to be set up and run in someone's personal garage.\n\nYear 1 Objectives: Full design and fabrication of a hydrocarbon cold-flow rocket/diffuser test bed and a test article representative of a hot-fire system that has already been experimentally characterized. Final deliverable would be a report detailing the design and hardware assembly. \n\nYear 2 Objectives: Activate the test bed, perform a series of cold-flow tests on one or more rocket/diffuser configurations, and characterize the performance of the ethane simulation compared to hot-fire. Deliverables would be a data review package and a NASA Technical Memorandum detailing the experiment.\n

Gap: All current analytical and empirical rocket diffuser design methodologies are inhibited by the limited envelope of available experimental data collected via low-pressure nitrogen and steam testing in the 1960s. Nitrogen and steam are poor analogs for rocket exhaust because they expand and cool more rapidly through any given nozzle geometry and will condense at the pressures/expansion ratios of most interest for diffuser testing. \n\nGoal: Develop and demonstrate a lab-scale hydrocarbon cold-flow simulation of coupled rocket/diffuser system aerodynamics. The thermochemical properties of ethane, specifically, can be tuned with heat addition to enable near-perfect pressure, isentropic exponent, Mach number, and Reynolds number matching without the complexities or expense of reacting flow.\n Once fully validated, this innovation is expected to reduce the cost of scaled propulsive aerodynamics testing by two orders of magnitude, and to reduce the time required by one. This has already benefited SLS/EUS in its diffuser testing and stands to benefit LaRC's wind tunnel testing of Mars lander supersonic retropropulsion.

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