Influence Parameters on Film Cooling Effectiveness in a High Pressure Subscale Combustion Chamber

Abstract

In typical high performance rocket engines like the European Vulcain 2 or the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) a significant reduction of thermal and structural loads is achieved by the application of film cooling with an acceptable loss in overall engine performance. Within the presented paper, the effectiveness of film cooling has been studied in a LOX/GH2 subscale rocket combustion chamber. Aiming at high performance first stage applications, combustion chamber pressures have been varied up to 12 MPa. Using GH2 with ambient temperatures for film cooling, typical influence parameters on film cooling effectiveness like film blowing rate, velocity ratio between film injection velocity and hot gas velocity, and film injection slot height have been investigated systematically at the European Research and Technology Test Facility P8.