Ablative cooling

With ablative cooling, combustion gas-side wall material is sacrificed by

melting, vaporization and chemical changes to dissipate heat. As a result,
relatively cool gases flow over the wall surface, thus lowering the
boundary-layer temperature and assisting the cooling process.
sink cooling uses a combination of endothermic reactions The common
method of ablative cooling or heat sink cooling uses a combination of
breakdown or distillation of matrix material into endothermic reactions
smaller compounds and gases), pyrolysis of organic materials
counter-current heat flow and coolant gas mass flow, charring and
localized melting. An ablative material usually
consists of a series of strong, oriented fibers (such as glass, Kevlar, or
an organic material (such as carbon fibers) engulfed by a matrix of
plastics, epoxy resins or phenolic resins). As shown in Fig. 14-11, the
gases seep out of the matrix and form a protective film cooling layer on
the matrix form a the inner wall surfaces. The fibers and the residues of
hard char or porous coke-like material that preserves the wall contour
shapes.

Ablative Materials.
These are not only commonly used in the nozzles of rocket motors, but
also in some insulation materials. They are usually a composite material
of high-temperature organic or inorganic high strength fibers, namely
high silica glass, aramids (Kevlar), or carbon fibers impregnated with
organic plastic materials such as phenolic or epoxy resin. The fibers may
be individual strands or bands (applied in a geometric pattern on a
winding machine), or come as a woven cloth or ribbon, all impregnated
with resin. The ablation process is a combination of surface melting,
sublimation, charring evaporation, decomposition in depth, and film
progressive layers of the ablative - .cooling. As shown in Fig
material undergo an endothermic degradation, that is, physical and
some of the ablative material chemical changes that absorb heat. While
evaporates (and some types also have a viscous liquid phase), enough
charred and porous solid material remains on the surface
to preserve the basic geometry and surface integrity. Upon rocket start the
ablative material acts like any thermal heat sink, but the poor conductivity
causes the surface temperature to rise rapidly. At 650 to 800 K some of
the resins start to decompose endothermically into a porous carbonaceous
char and pyrolysis gases. As the char depth increases, these gases
undergo an endothermic cracking process as they percolate through the
char in a counterflow direction to the heat flux. These gases then form an

protective, relatively cool, but flimsy boundary layer artificial fuel-rich

over the char.
Since char is almost all carbon and can withstand 3500 K or 6000 R, the
porous char layer allows the original surface to be maintained (but with a
rough surface texture) and provides geometric integrity. Char is a weak
material and can be damaged or abraded by direct impingement of solid
particles in the gas. Ablative material construction is used for part or all
of the chambers.

Transpiration
Transpiration cooling provides coolant (either gaseous or liquid
propellant) through a porous chamber wall at a rate sufficient to
maintain the chamber hot gas wall to the desired temperature. The
technique is really aspecial case of film cooling.

Radiation cooling
With radiation cooling, heat is radiated from the outer surface of the
combustion chamber or nozzle extension wall. Radiation cooling is
typically used for small thrust chambers with a high-temperature wall
material (refractory) and in low-heat flux regions, such as a nozzle
extension.

Film cooling
Film cooling provides protection from excessive heat by introducing a
thin film of coolant or propellant through orifices around the injector
periphery or through manifolded orifices in the chamber wall near the
injector or chamber throat region. This method is typically used in high
heat flux regions and in combination with regenerative cooling.

Film Cooling
This is an auxiliary method applied to chambers and/or nozzles,
augmenting either a marginal steady-state or a transient cooling method.
It can be applied to a complete thrust chamber or just to the nozzle, where
heat transfer is the highest. Film cooling is a method of cooling whereby
a relatively cool thin fluid film covers and protects exposed wall surfaces
from excessive heat transfer. Fig. 8-11 shows film-cooled chambers. The
film is introduced by injecting small quantities of fuel or an inet fluid at
very low velocity through a large number of orifices along the exposed
surfaces in such a manner that a protective relatively cool gas film is
formed. A coolant with a high heat of vaporization and a high boiling
point is particularly desirable. In liquid propellant rocket engines extra
fuel can also be admitted through extra injection holes at the outer layers
of the injector; thus a propellant mixture is achieved (at the periphery of
the chamber), which has a much lower combustion temperature. This
differs from film cooling or transpiration cooling because there does not
have to be a chamber.

Propellant Burning Rate.

It is possible to approximate the burning rates as a function of chamber
pressure, at least over a limited range of chamber pressures. For most
production-type propellants, this empirical equation is used,

rb = a (Pc)^n Regression Law St. Roberts Law

Regression rate proportional to pressure to some index n.
Also, Log( rb ) = a n Log( Pc )
a is an empirical constant influenced by ambient grain temperature. Also
a is known as the temperature coefficient and it is not dimensionless.

The burning rate exponent n, sometimes called the combustion
index. It is independent of the initial grain temperature and
describes the influence of chamber pressure on the burning rate.

The burning rate is very sensitive to the exponent n. For stable operation,
n has values greater than 0 and less than 1.0. High values of n give a rapid
change of burning rate with pressure. This implies that even a small
change in chamber pressure produces substantial changes in the amount
of hot gas produced. Most production propellants have a pressure
exponent n ranging between 0.2 and 0.6.
 In practice, as n approaches 1, burning rate and chamber pressure
become very sensitive to one another and disastrous rises in
chamber pressure can occur in a few milliseconds.
 When the n value is low and comes closer to zero, burning can
become unstable and may even extinguish itself. Some propellants
display a negative n which is important for "restartable" motors or
gas generators.
 A propellant having a pressure exponent of zero displays
essentially zero change in burning rate over a wide pressure range.
Plateau propellants are those that exhibit a nearly constant burning
rate over a limited pressure range.