Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea ISSN:1229-3059(Print) 2287-2302(Online) 한국전산구조공학회 논문집

Ablative material in a rocket nozzle is exposed to high temperature combustion gas, thus undergoes complicated thermal/chemical change in terms of chemical destruction of surface and thermal decomposition of inner material. Therefore, method for conjugate analysis of thermal response inside carbon/phenolic material including rocket nozzle flow, surface chemical reaction and thermal decomposition is developed in this research. CFD is used to simulate flow field inside nozzle and conduction in the ablative material. A change in material density and a heat absorption caused by the thermal decomposition is considered in solid energy equation. And algebraic equation under boundary layer assumption is used to deduce reaction rate on the surface and resulting destruction of the surface. In order to test the developed method, small rocket nozzle is solved numerically. Although the ablation of nozzle throat is deduced to be higher than the experiment, shape change and temperature distribution inside material is well predicted. Error in temperature with experimental results in rapid heating region is found to be within 100 K.