JOURNAL OF PROPULSION AND POWER

Technical Notes
Design and Validation of a Liquid Film- αw = wall absorptivity
Γ = liquid coolant mass flow rate per circumference
Cooled Hydrogen Peroxide/Kerosene εg = freestream gas emissivity
Bipropellant Thruster λ = latent heat of vaporization of coolant
μc = coolant viscosity
μg = combustion gas viscosity
Dongwook Jang∗ ρc = coolant density
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, ρg = combustion gas density
σ = Stefan–Boltzmann constant
Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea
Youngchul Kwak†
i3system, Inc., Daejeon 305-343, Republic of Korea
and
Sejin Kwon‡
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, I. Introduction
Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea
DOI: 10.2514/1.B35434 I N THE thrust chamber of a liquid-bipropellant rocket, the
temperature of combustion product gas is typically 1000 ∼
2000 °C higher than the melting temperature of common metals. To
prevent the meltdown of the chamber wall, the excessive heat flux
Nomenclature must be controlled. For a big rocket used as a booster or sustainer of a
Cpc = coolant specific heat capacity space launch vehicle, the heat is absorbed by liquid-propellant flow in
Cpg = combustion gas specific heat capacity the regenerative channel, machined on the skin of the thrust chamber.
Gch = freestream gas mass flow per area For smaller rockets or thrusters used as an orbital maneuvering
h = convection heat transfer coefficient system (OMS) of a spacecraft, the thrust chambers are not cooled at
h0 = convection heat transfer coefficient of dry wall all. The heat is dissipated by radiation at the outer skin of the thrust
condition without transpiration chamber. Because the radiation-cooled thrust chamber must tolerate
I = instability of chamber pressure, % high temperature, alloys of novel metals are used as wall material. In
Kd = effect of hydrogen peroxide decomposition constant the smaller rockets, however, machining of the regenerative channel
KM = correction factor for molecular weight in the thrust chamber skin is difficult. Additionally, propellants of
Kt = correction factor for turbulence conventional OMS thrusters have low heat capacity, undermining the
L· c = liquid film-cooling length effectiveness of regenerative cooling [1–3].
mvap = total liquid evaporation rate per surface area We investigated thermal protection of a thrust chamber wall
O∕F = oxidizer-to-fuel ratio by film cooling as an alternative cooling method. In particular, the
Pavg = average chamber pressure in steady-state opera- investigation concerns an 800 N hydrogen peroxide/kerosene
tion, bar bipropellant thruster whose chamber wall is cooled by liquid
Pc = chamber pressure hydrogen peroxide injected adjacent to the wall. The thruster is being
Pmax , = maximum, minimum chamber pressure in steady- developed as a main engine for a moon lander ground test model and
Pmin state operation, bar an OMS for a spacecraft. Although there are many numerical simu-
Qcon = convection heat flux lations and experiments on the reacting flow in a film-cooled thruster,
Qrad = radiative heat transfer none appear to account for the complex phenomena involved in the
Qtot = total heat flux thermochemical processes of hydrogen peroxide [4–8]. We relied on
St0 = Stanton number of dry wall condition without a simple idealized model modified from one that was proposed by
transpiration Grisson [9] to estimate the heat transfer behavior of the reacting flow
Tc = coolant inlet temperature in the thrust chamber.
Tg = combustion/freestream gas temperature The adiabatic flame temperature of the burnt gas of hydrogen
Tm = mean temperature between freestream gas and liquid peroxide and kerosene is almost 2700 K well beyond the melting
Tv = saturation temperature of coolant point of common metals. If not cooled in an active method, the
Ug = freestream gas axial velocity meltdown of the chamber wall would destroy the thruster. Therefore,
Ul = coolant axial velocity a fraction of oxidizer H2 O2 is taken from the main oxidizer supply for
the purpose of film cooling. The hydrogen peroxide is a good coolant
because its heat capacity is unusually high compared with other
Received 24 April 2014; revision received 26 September 2014; accepted for
publication 11 November 2014; published online 28 January 2015. Copyright liquid propellant. The degradation of specific impulse by using a
© 2014 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All fraction of hydrogen peroxide supply as a coolant in the case of H2 O2 /
rights reserved. Copies of this paper may be made for personal or internal use, kerosene bipropellant was not severe because of high O∕F ratio.
on condition that the copier pay the $10.00 per-copy fee to the Copyright However, hydrogen peroxide decomposes when exposed to high heat
Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923; include flux and complicates the prediction of the liquid film length that
the code 1533-3876/15 and $10.00 in correspondence with the CCC. covers the internal wall of the thrust chamber. We developed a design
*Ph.D. Candidate, Division of Aerospace Engineering, 291, Daehak-ro, procedure for a film-cooled thrust chamber of an 800 N H2 O2 /
Yuseong-gu; menat87@kaist.ac.kr. Member AIAA.
†
Associate Research Engineer, Division of Research Center, 26-32, kerosene bipropellant thruster and validated the procedure by test
Gajeongbuk-ro, Yuseong-gu; Youngchul.kwak@i3system.com. firing of the thruster. From the measured data, we derived a correction
‡ factor Kd to be used with hydrogen peroxide liquid film length,
Professor, Division of Aerospace Engineering, 291, Daehak-ro, Yuseong-
gu; trumpet@kaist.ac.kr. Member AIAA. accounting for the gasification by thermal decomposition.
AIAA Early Edition / 1
2 AIAA Early Edition / TECHNICAL NOTES

II. One-Dimensional Calculation of Film Cooling

A. Design of Eight Hundred Newton Bipropellant Thruster
A storable propellant, 90 wt% hydrogen peroxide, was selected as
an oxidizer in combination with kerosene as a fuel for a bipropellant
thruster capable of 800 N thrust in vacuum. The dimensions of the
thruster are listed in Table 1. The design of the thruster is shown in the
drawing of Fig. 1 [10]. The characteristic velocity and specific
impulse were calculated theoretically. Nozzle throat area, mass
flow rate of propellant, and exit nozzle area were determined from
equilibrium combustion properties calculated from Gordon and
McBride [11]. The sizing of the combustion chamber volume was
determined using empirical constants from Huzel and Huang [2]. We
selected a conical nozzle for easy fabrication. The area ratio of the Fig. 1 Schematic of H2 O2 /kerosene bipropellant engine.
nozzle was 3.79 for optimum expansion at ambient pressure. The
sizing of the catalyst bed was determined using the empirical method
proposed by An and Kwon [12] based on MnO2 ∕Al2 O3 catalyst
decomposition capacity. Referring to Fig. 1, the main hydrogen
peroxide flow enters the thrust chamber from a showerhead injector
(A) and decomposes by the catalyst bed. The catalyst bed (B) was
sized so that complete decomposition of supplied hydrogen peroxide
was possible. The oxygen rich product gas leaves the catalyst bed
through the distributer (C) and enters the combustion chamber. The
adiabatic decomposition temperature of 90 wt% hydrogen peroxide
is 749°C [11], well beyond the ignition temperature of kerosene.
Kerosene is injected through the nozzles distributed on the distributor
(C) and combustion starts spontaneously upon mixing with the de-
composed oxidizer.

B. One-Dimensional Calculation of Film Cooling

One dimensional heat transfer analysis was carried out for the
design of the film-cooling injectors. The convective and radiative
heat fluxes from the burnt gas were absorbed by the liquid film. The
length of the region protected by the film cooling was estimated as the
extent within which the coolant film remained as liquid. Grisson [9]
developed an analytical model to predict the length of liquid film in a
thrust chamber. To account for the effect of thermal decomposition of Fig. 2 Flow chart of the liquid film length calculation.
hydrogen peroxide, we introduced a correction factor Kd, which
was determined empirically. The model calculated the rate of
evaporation, and the extent of the film covering the wall was
evaluated. Calculation procedure is illustrated in the flow chart of
Fig. 2, which describes the stepwise calculation of the remaining
mass of the liquid hydrogen peroxide along the internal wall after
local evaporation and thermal decomposition, as shown in Fig. 3.
With given mass flow rate of the coolant, the convection and radiation
heat fluxes were calculated by

Table 1 Design of 800 N hydrogen Fig. 3 Heat transfer model by Grisson [9].
peroxide/kerosene thruster
Parameter Value Unit Qrad  σαw εg T 4g − T 4v  Qcon  hT g − T v  (1)
General
Chamber pressure 20 bar
Vacuum thrust 800 N
Characteristic velocity 1597.8 m∕s The total gas emissivity εg was obtained from parabolic
Characteristic length 0.95 m interpolation between the three temperature curves for burnt gas
Total mass flow rate 0.28 kg∕s components, CO2 and H2 O. The Stefan–Boltzmann constant and the
O∕F ratio 7.2 — —
Catalyst reactor
wall absorptivity are σ and αw , respectively. The convective heat
Reactor diameter 60 mm transfer coefficient h was determined by convective heat transfer
Reactor length 35 mm coefficient without transpiration h0 and correction factor for the
Combustion chamber transpiration process at the surface. The value of heat transfer
Chamber diameter 60 mm coefficient without transpiration h0 was calculated by Eqs. (2) and
Chamber length 66.25 mm (3). The corrected gas mass flow rate per unit surface area, G in
Nozzle Eq. (2), is evaluated at the mean temperature between the gas and
Throat diameter 16.83 mm
Contraction ratio 12.75 — —
liquid film. In Eq. (3), K t is the turbulence correction factor and St0 is
Exit diameter 37.44 mm the Stanton number, using the Reynolds momentum-heat analogy for
turbulent convection:
 AIAA Early Edition / TECHNICAL NOTES 3

Table 2 Properties of burnt gas and Table 3 Results of short firing test
hydrogen peroxide as coolant
Firing test with film
Properties Value Unit Operating condition Uncooled firing test cooling
Burnt gas Case 0 1 2 3
Pressure 20 bar Oxidizer mass flow rate, g∕s 246.1 241.4 243.6 246.0
Temperature 2726 K Fuel mass flow rate, g∕s 34.6 33.3 33.4 33.0
Density 1.93 kg∕m3 Coolant mass flow rate, g∕s — — 52.8 62.7 70.2
Specific heat capacity 4.521 J∕kg · K O∕F ratio 7.12 8.83 9.18 9.58
Viscosity 0.0976 g∕m · s Chamber pressure, bar 18.03 20.35 20.60 21.18
Hydrogen peroxide Pressure instability, % 1.51 2.02 1.14 1.80
Density 1392 kg∕m3 C efficiency, % 88.97 87.99 87.52 89.02
Injection temperature 298 K
Boiling point at 20 bar 520 K
Specific heat capacity 2775.8 J∕kg · K
Latent heat 1474.1 kJ∕kg ratio of freestream gas-to-liquid film vapor. The different molecular
Viscosity 1.158 g∕m · s
weights of freestream gas and vapor affect the boundary-layer
thickness. The hydrogen peroxide heat of evaporation is λ. The cal-
culation marches along the surface until the residual mass in the
G  Gch T g ∕T m Ug − Ul ∕Ug  (2) liquid film disappears. The properties of the freestream gas were
obtained from Gordon and McBride [11] and the properties of film
liquid were from the Hydrogen Peroxide Property Handbook [13].
The properties are listed in Table 2:
h0  K t GCpg St0 (3)
·
H  Cpg Km mvap ∕h (4)
Using the h0 value, the convective heat transfer coefficient and mass
flow rate of vaporized coolant were calculated implicitly from
Eqs. (4–6). The correction factor Km is based on the molecular weight h  h0 ln1  H∕H (5)

·
75 Mass flow rate of coolant δmvap x  δQrad x  δQcon x∕λ (6)

70
The calculated length of the liquid film was plotted as a function of
Mass flow rate (g/s)

65
the injected coolant mass flow rate with K d as a parameter in Fig. 4.
Because of the thermal decomposition of hydrogen peroxide, the
60
liquid film loses additional mass and the extent of the liquid film
55
decreases. The precise proportion of thermal decomposition and
evaporation was impossible to calculate analytically. Therefore, we
50 introduced the correction factor Kd and determined its value
empirically by test firing of the given thruster. For the design of the
45 thruster, we assumed that K d was greater 0.5 and less than 0.9, which
meant that the actual film length was as short as only half of the length
40 predicted by pure evaporation calculation. The mass flow rate of the
coolant for the thruster in the present study with the distance from
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 the injector head to the nozzle throat of 9.5 cm ranged from 45
Effect of hydrogen peroxide decomposition constant (Kd ) to 75 g∕s.
Fig. 4 Required mass flow rate with various Kd value.

III. Film-Cooling Test Results and Discussion

The firing tests of the thruster with and without film-cooling
injection were carried out to modify the analytical model. Constant
mass flow rates of oxidizer and fuel were maintained by the
specifically designed cavitating venturi valves regardless of the thrust
chamber pressure. Eight temperature probes were installed on the
thrust chamber wall, as shown in Fig. 5. The thruster was fired
without coolant injection for 2 s. The coolant was then injected at
three mass flow rates of 52, 62, and 70 g∕s. The test conditions and
measurement results are summarized in Table 3. In Table 3, the
pressure instability is calculated by Eq. (7). The uncooled firing test,
case zero, resulted in the characteristic velocity efficiency of 90% and
the chamber pressure instability less than 2% of the average chamber
pressure, which indicated that the thruster performed as designed.
The characteristic velocity efficiency and chamber pressure
instability were largely invariant, even when the film cooling was
introduced (cases 1–3 in Table 3). The result showed that hydrogen
peroxide in the liquid film was not wasted but fully decomposed and
participated in the combustion as oxidizer:

Pmax − Pmin
Fig. 5 Probe locations for metal temperature of the thrust chamber wall I%  × 100 (7)
(in millimeters). Pavg
4 AIAA Early Edition / TECHNICAL NOTES

Table 4 Test condition and results of chamber and provided effective thermal protection. However, the
long time operation test metal temperature at the top location around the nozzle throat,
Test 1 Test 2 indicated by nozzle 1 in Fig. 6a, did not reach a stable value and
increased to 700°C during the firing test, whereas the metal tem-
Oxidizer mass flow rate, g∕s 241.6 243.4
perature at the bottom location around the nozzle throat, indicated by
Fuel mass flow rate, g∕s 33.6 33.3
Coolant mass flow rate, g∕s 56.7 73.0 nozzle 2 in Fig. 6a, remained below 300°C. This uneven temperature
O∕F ratio 8.87 9.50 distribution along the perimeter of the nozzle throat was due to the
Chamber pressure, bar 20.22 20.91 gravitation pull of the liquid film downward and detachment of
Pressure instability, % 4.75 1.66 coolant film at the top side, because the thruster axis and coolant
C efficiency, % 88.1 85.9 injection were in a horizontal direction.
In Fig. 6b, all the measured metal temperatures in the combustion
chamber stabilized after 20 s into the firing test and remained steady.
The temperatures measured in the contraction part of the nozzle,
An extended firing test of the thruster was carried out for 30 s to
however, increased somewhat even after 20 s and then decreased,
verify the effective cooling of the thrust chamber wall. The test
which demonstrated that the thruster structure was appropriately
procedure was identical to the previous short test, except that the
protected by the liquid film. However, the sufficient supply of coolant
duration of the firing was 30 s, with mass flow rate of the coolant as
liquid protected the thrust chamber wall as well as the nozzle with
a parameter at 56 and 73 g∕s. The test condition and results of
coolant mass flow rate of 73 g∕s, which corresponded with Kd
extended firing are summarized in Table 4. The C efficiency of test 1 of 0.55.
was nearly identical to that of the short test. The C efficiency of test 2
was 3% lower than that of the short test, which indicated that part of
the hydrogen peroxide in the liquid film was wasted without fully IV. Conclusions
releasing the stored energy when its mass flow rate was 73 g∕s. The Thermal protection of thrust chamber wall and nozzle by
measured metal temperature of the thrust chamber wall was plotted in employing film cooling was investigated experimentally and
Fig. 6 for low mass flow rate of coolant at 56 g∕s (Fig. 6a) and high analytically for a hydrogen peroxide/kerosene bipropellant thruster.
mass flow rate at 73 g∕s (Fig. 6b). The thruster was designed to produce 800 N of thrust force in
In Fig. 6a, all measured metal temperatures along the thrust vacuum. Multiple injected jets of hydrogen peroxide formed a liquid
chamber wall remained around 200°C during the firing test. Con- film shroud that covered the inner wall of the thrust chamber and
sidering that the saturation temperature of hydrogen peroxide is 250° nozzle. As long as the shroud remained liquid film, the wall was
C at 20 bar, the liquid film still covered the inner wall of the thrust protected from the heat transfer from the burnt gas in the thrust
chamber. To predict the extent of the liquid film, a one-dimensional
analysis model proposed by Grisson [9] was adapted with a
modification to account for the effect of thermal decomposition of
hydrogen peroxide with an empirical constant K d , determined from
previous research on a similar thruster. The decomposition of
hydrogen peroxide shortened the length of effective cooling with
given mass flow rate of the coolant, with Kd ranging from 0.5 to 0.9,
corresponding to the coolant mass flow rate estimation of 45–75 g∕s.
A parametric study was carried out with the coolant mass flow rate as
a parameter on an 800 N bipropellant thruster specifically designed
for the present study. An 800 N bipropellant thruster was designed
with the coolant injectors that supplied 45–75 g∕s of hydrogen
peroxide.
A firing test of the thruster was carried out to verify the analysis and
design. The C efficiency and thrust chamber pressure instability
estimated from the test result were around 85 ∼ 90 and 1 ∼ 2%,
respectively. When the coolant mass flow rate was relatively low at
58 g∕s, uneven metal temperature distribution around the perimeter
of the nozzle throat was observed due to the gravitational pull of the
liquid film downward, while the thrust axis was horizontal and the top
location around the nozzle throat was not protected effectively for the
extended firing test. The uneven temperature distribution persisted
even with increased mass flow rate of coolant at 73 g∕s, but the top
location around the nozzle was well protected. The K d factor at this
coolant mass flow rate was evaluated to be 0.55.

Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of
Korea grant funded by the Korean government (Ministry of
Education, Science and Technology) (2012R1A2A1A05026398).

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