Numerical Simulations of Single Flow Element in a Nuclear Thermal Thrust Chamber (original) (raw)

The objective of this effort is to develop an efficient and accurate computational methodology to predict both detailed and global thermo-nuid environments of a single now element in a hypothetical solid-core nuclear thermal thrust chamber assembly, Several numerical and multi-physics thermo-fluid models, such as chemical reactions, turbulence, conjugate heat transfer, porosity, and power generation, were incorporated into an unstructured-grid, pressure-based computational fluid dynamics solver. The numerical simulations of a single now element provide a detailed thermo-fluid environment for thermal stress estimation and insight for possible occurrence of mid-section corrosion. In addition, detailed conjugate heal transfer simulations were employed to develop the porosity models for efficient pressure drop and thermal load calculations.