Experimental Investigation of Heat Transfer in a Subscale Liquid Rocket Engine

This work presents the experimental investigation of heat fluxes through the walls of a reduced-scale rocket motor using hydrogen and oxygen as propellants. The engine is water cooled so that it can be run in steady state for up to 120 s. More than 100 thermocouples are used to retrieve the wall temperature and derive heat fluxes. It is shown how the chamber pressure affects the overall heat flux level, whereas the mixture ratio greatly influences its distribution. Direct visualization of the flame provides an indication that the heat flux distribution is correlated to the location of heat release given by hydroxyle radical visualization.