AN ANALYSIS OF THE LAMINARIZATION PHENOMENA IN ROCKET NOZZLES

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, MTC, Cairo, Egypt.

Abstract

The accelerations imposed on the gas flow inside nozzles of rocket engines are extremely high. By such high acceleration applied to the flow, the turbulent layer structure at the wall is suppressed and a partial or complete conversion to a laminar boundary layer is obtained. By such laminarization, intensive reduction in heat transfer rates occurs. In this paper;theoretical and experimental investigations were conducted to determine the impact of such iaminarization phenomena on the local values of heat transfer coefficients in rocket nozzles. A simple hypothsis is also given for correlating the measured gas-film heat transfer coefficients at the throat of such nozzles. By such hypothesis, it was possible to develop a theoretical scheme based on tne conservation equation to predict the temperature distribution, in the nozzle-walls.