Chapter 13.

Heat transfer analysis

Main contents:

Introduction
General Steady-State Heat Transfer Relations
Transient Heat Transfer Analysis
Steady-State Transfer to Liquids in Cooling Jacket

STEADY-STATE HEAT TRANS

FER RELATIONS
3

Problem

In the rocket propulsion field, the steady-state heat transfer through t

he chamber wall of a rocket chamber can be treated as a series type:
1. Steady-state heat transfer problem with a large temperature gradi
ent across the gaseous film on the inside of the chamber wall;
2. The temperature drop across the wall;
3. The temperature drop across the film of the moving cooling fluid
(in cases of cooled chambers).
In general steady-state, it is a combination of convection at the b
oundaries of the flowing fluids and conduction through the cha
mber walls

STEADY-STATE HEAT TRANS

FER RELATIONS
4

I. Conduction

Fouriers law:
(1)

where:
qcond is the heat transferred rate;
is the temperature gradient;
x is the direction of heat flux;
k is thermal conductivity;
A is the area of the cross surface.

STEADY-STATE HEAT TRANS

FER RELATIONS
5

II. Convection

Regenerative cooling

For regeneratively cooled thrust chambers:

(2)
Where h is the overall film coefficient
(3)
hg, hl are the gas film and the coolant liquid film coeffi
cient, respectively;
tw is the thickness of the chamber wall,
k is the conductivity of the wall material.

Tg is the absolute chamber gas temperature;

Temperature gradients in cooled rocket thrust chamber

IN TERMS OF DIMENSIONLESS PAR

AMETERS
6

For convention, heat transfer theory is usually given in terms of several dimensionless parameters as:
(4)
Where:
hg is the film coefficient,
D is the diameter of the chamber of the nozzle,
v is the calculated average local gas velocity,
k is the conductivity of the gas,
is the absolute gas viscosity,
cp is the specific heat of the gas at constant pressure,
is the gas density

IN TERMS OF DIMENSIONLESS PAR

AMETERS
The gas film coefficient hg:
(5)
Or:
(6)
Where:
Pr is the Prandtl number,
D is the diameter of the chamber of the nozzle,
v is the calculated average local gas velocity,
K is the conductivity of the gas,
is the absolute gas viscosity,
cp is the specific heat of the gas at constant pressure,
is the gas density
' is the free-stream value of the local gas density
The subscript 0 refers to properties evaluated at the stagnation or combustion temperature;
The subscript am refers to properties at the arithmetic mean temperature of the local free-stream st
atic temperature and the wall temperatures;

TRANSIENT HEAT TRANSFER ANAL

YSIS
8

In case of an uncooled (or high melting point) metal

thrust chamber, in general, there is no chemical cha
nge. Therefore thermal equilibrium is not reached.
With the air of experimental data to determine som
e typical coefficients, it is possible in some cases to p
redict the transient heating of uncooled walls.
A typical temperature-time-location history is given i
n figure below:

Temperature distributions through a wall of

an uncooled metal thrust chamber

TRANSIENT HEAT TRANSFER ANALYSIS

9

The heat transferred across the hot surface of the wall chamber:
(7)
Q is the heat per second transferred across area A;
m is the mass of a unit area of wall;
is the average specific heat of the wall material;
t is the time increment.

STEADY-STATE TRANSFER TO LIQUIDS IN COOLING JACKET

10

Forced convection heat transfer

For rockets where one of the propellants is circula

ted through cooling passages around the thrust c
hamber prior to the injection and burning of this
propellant in the chamber, it is really forced conve
ction heat transfer.
Liquid film is critical for controlling the wall tem
peratures in forced convection cooling of rocket d
evices at high heat fluxes.
The liquid film coefficient:
(8)
The rate of heat absorption per unit time:
(9)
Regimes in transferring heat from a
hot wall
to a flowing liquid

Where:
is the coolant mass flow rate,
is the average specific heat of the liquid,
T1, T2 are the initial temperature of the coolant
as it enters the cooling jacket and its final tem
perature, respectively

STEADY-STATE TRANSFER TO LIQUIDS IN COOLING JA

CKET
11

Table 13.1. Heat Transfer Characteristics of Several Liquid

Propellants

HEAT SINKS
12

In case of solid propellant rocket, the heat transfer model can be consider as a
heat sink. Therefore:
The mean temperature of the nozzle wall:
(9)
is the density of the wall material;
c is the specific heat;
L is the thickness of the wall.

Schematic diagram of an advanced solidpropellant nozzle

HEAT SINKS
13

Time for the mean wall temperature to increase 1000 K:

(10)
k is the thermal conductivity of the wall material;
is the thermal diffusivity
(11)
Typical value of k and are given in table 13.2 as below

HEAT SINKS
14

Table 13.2. Thermal conductivity and diffusivity of solid materials:

HEAT SINKS
15

One-dimensional heat sink cooling

model

The heat flux one-dimensional transient conductio

n:
(11)
Boundary condition, at the hot face of the wall:
(12)

One-dimensional heat sink

cooling model

Temperature at position x can be obtained throug

h equation:
(13)
Where:
Ti is the initial wall temperature;
erf(y) is the error function
(14)

Transient conduction through

a semi-infinite wall