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Effect of the head cavity on pressure oscillation suppression characteristics in large solid rocket motors

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Abstract

In order to discover the effect of head cavity on resonance damping characteristics in solid rocket motors, large-eddy simulations with wall-adapting-local-eddy-viscosity subgrid scale turbulent model are implemented to study the oscillation flow field induced by vortex shedding based on the VKI (von Kármán Institute) experimental motor. Firstly, mesh sensitivity analysis and grid-independent analysis are carried out for the computer code validation. Then, the numerical method is further validated by comparing the calculated results and experimental data. Thirdly, the effects of head-end cavity on the pressure oscillation am-plitudes are studied in this paper. The results indicate that cavity volume, location and configuration have a cooperative effect on the oscillation amplitude. It is proved that Rayleigh criterion can be used as a guiding principle for the design of resonance damping cavity. The change of the head-end cavity breaks the balance between the mass flux and acoustic energy. Therefore, the pressure oscillation characteristics change accordingly. It is concluded that a large mass flux added at the pressure antinode could attribute to significant amplitude. Meanwhile, the damping effect of the cavity is stronger when the distance between cavity and pressure antinode becomes shorter. Finally, this method is applied to the modification of an engineering solid rocket motor. The static test of solid rocket motor reflects that the oscillations can be effectively suppressed by a head-end cavity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing, 100094, China

    Qiao Zhang

  2. School of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Qiao Zhang, NingFei Wang & JunWei Li

  3. Research and Development Center, China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, Beijing, 100076, China

    WanXing Su

  4. Qian Xue-sen Laboratory of Space Technology, Beijing, 100094, China

    Yan Zhang

Authors
  1. Qiao Zhang
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  2. NingFei Wang
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  3. JunWei Li
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  4. WanXing Su
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  5. Yan Zhang
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Correspondence to JunWei Li.

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Zhang, Q., Wang, N., Li, J. et al. Effect of the head cavity on pressure oscillation suppression characteristics in large solid rocket motors. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 58, 1250–1262 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-015-5834-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-015-5834-z

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