Different Rocket engine configurations

[Garret Welch]

Hello all! I'm fairly new to Cantera, please go easy on me haha.

I'm doing this really cool project where i'm trying to compare the efficiencies of different rocket engines, but i'm unsure where to start in Cantera?

Specifically, i'm wanting to compare the efficiencies between a pressure fed bipropellant engine and a closed fuel rich cycle. 

I'm thinking with the biprop engine, I would use a single combustor that has a fuel and oxidizer being fed into it and then calculate/record efficiencies there. Then, for the fuel rich closed cycle, I would think I would need to simulate two combustors. One that has a set ratio of oxidizer reacting with fuel, and then taking the products of that combustor and feeding it into a second combustor along with the remaining unreacted oxidizer. 

I guess my main questions are:

- Am I on the right track by using combustors for this process?

- Would the fact that the combustor is well stirred mess with my ability to create a pre burner? Essentially could I create a pre-burner that runs on, lets say a 90% fuel, 10% oxidizer mixture? I guess i'm unsure as to how the well-stirred portion of the combustor limits my abilities with this.

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated, thank you all very much!

GW

[Ray Speth]

Hi Garret,

I think using a well-stirred reactor to represent the combustor / pre-burner is a fine starting point for modeling these cycles. You’ll need to calculate the inlet conditions for each of these combustors separately from the reactor network model, as it doesn’t have any components that can represent the turbopump. You can of course use Cantera for calculating the thermodynamic properties that go into those calculations; see rankine.py for an example of this type of calculation.

Regards,
Ray

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