Experimental Investigation on the Transcritical Behaviour of Methane and Numerical Rebuilding Activity in the Frame of the HYPROB-BREAD Project

The HYPROB Program, led by the Italian Aerospace Research Centre, has the aim to increase the Italian capabilities in the design and manufacture of liquid oxygen-methane rocket engines; in particular, the line, named HYPROB-BREAD, has the final goal of developing and testing a ground demonstrator of three-tons-thrust class, regeneratively cooled by liquid methane. Some intermediate breadboards have been conceived, realized and tested to deepen some technical issues: among them a specific breadboard, named MTP-B (Methane Thermal Properties Breadboard), has been designed and tested to investigate thermal characteristics of methane as a coolant, and perform the design validation activity by collecting experimental data. The concept is based on the electrical heating of a conductive material that transfers a thermal load, similar to those experienced in the regenerative cooling chambers, to a channel, having dimensions typical of regenerative cooling jackets. The test campaign has been successfully accomplished by collecting data, in terms of inlet/outlet fluid temperature and pressure, temperature at different stations and depth from the channel bottom surface. A numerical rebuilding activity has been planned to verify the numerical thermal models and engineering tools, adopted for the design of the final demonstrator. Thus, simulations on a fully 3-D model, including inlet and outlet interfaces, were performed on some test conditions after completing a preliminary activity on cold flow tests. The results of the numerical rebuilding are satisfactory since very good comparisons with the experimental data were observed.Copyright © 2015 by ASME