ID 348

Investigation of water jet breakup behavior in crossflow with a supersonic air jet

 

Abstract:

In the testing of rocket engines it becomes very important to protect the testing hardware from damage by the extreme thermal and acoustic loading generated by the high-energy rocket exhaust. In order to better inform the testing hardware development at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi a complex multi-phase CFD code has been developed to inform the design of water spray systems used to cool rocket exhaust and mitigate the effects of acoustic loads. In order to assist in the validation of this computational code, a scaled test facility has been developed at Louisiana State University to examine the behavior of a representative water jet breakup interaction with a supersonic jet of air. A 0.38” diameter air jet of Mach number 2.8 and stagnation pressure of 150psig interacts with a 0.06” diameter water jet at a pressure between 0-100psig, and non-intrusive diagnostics are used to examine the breakup process and behavior. A laser sheet is used to visualize the breakup of the jet in-plane with both the water and air jets, and the breakup process and stability are analyzed. Additionally, the change in acoustic signature due to the introduction of the water jet for varying injection locations within the air jet are examined.