Advances in Computational Methodologies for Aerospace Propulsion

A special issue of Aerospace (ISSN 2226-4310).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 April 2021) | Viewed by 12048

Special Issue Editor

CIRA, Italian Aerospace Research Centre, 81043 Capua, Italy
Interests: space propulsion; plasma physics; computational fluid dynamics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Computational methodologies applied to aerospace propulsion cover an important role to support and even speed up design phases, by predicting the behavior of complex systems or performing simulations at conditions for which no ground test capabilities exist or are available. The development of such methods, characterized by reasonable time, costs and accuracy, face some major challenges like: complicated geometries and boundary conditions; three-dimensional, transient behavior; chemical reactions and reacting flows; plasma modeling; heat transfer; turbulence and mixing modeling; multiphase flows; material and structural modeling; interactions between propulsion components; interactions between the propulsion system and frames. Authors are encouraged to submit contributions linked to those areas, describing recent achievements applied to aerospace propulsion also supported by relevant experiments.

Dr. Francesco Battista
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Aerospace is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • computational methodologies
  • numerical versus experiment comparison
  • two phase flows
  • fluid structure interactions
  • combustion and flames
  • plasmas, heat transfer, acoustic
  • interaction between component
  • structure modeling

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

27 pages, 1128 KiB  
Article
A Hybrid Real/Ideal Gas Mixture Computational Framework to Capture Wave Propagation in Liquid Rocket Combustion Chamber Conditions
by Simone D’Alessandro, Marco Pizzarelli and Francesco Nasuti
Aerospace 2021, 8(9), 250; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/aerospace8090250 - 04 Sep 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1666
Abstract
The present work focuses on the development of new mathematical and numerical tools to deal with wave propagation problems in a realistic liquid rocket chamber environment. A simplified real fluid equation of state is here derived, starting from the literature. An approximate Riemann [...] Read more.
The present work focuses on the development of new mathematical and numerical tools to deal with wave propagation problems in a realistic liquid rocket chamber environment. A simplified real fluid equation of state is here derived, starting from the literature. An approximate Riemann solver is then specifically derived for the selected conservation laws and primitive variables. Both the new equation of state and the new Riemann solver are embedded into an in-house one-dimensional CFD solver. The verification and validation of the new code against wave propagation problems are then performed, showing good behavior. Although such problems might be of interest for different applications, the present study is specifically oriented to the low order modeling of high-frequency combustion instability in liquid-propellant rocket engines. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Computational Methodologies for Aerospace Propulsion)
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20 pages, 5063 KiB  
Article
Numerical Investigation on the Thermal Behaviour of a LOx/LCH4 Demonstrator Cooling System
by Daniele Ricci, Francesco Battista and Manrico Fragiacomo
Aerospace 2021, 8(6), 151; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/aerospace8060151 - 27 May 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2443
Abstract
Reliability of liquid rocket engines is strictly connected with the successful operation of cooling jackets, able to sustain the impressive operative conditions in terms of huge thermal and mechanical loads, generated in thrust chambers. Cryogenic fuels, like methane or hydrogen, are often used [...] Read more.
Reliability of liquid rocket engines is strictly connected with the successful operation of cooling jackets, able to sustain the impressive operative conditions in terms of huge thermal and mechanical loads, generated in thrust chambers. Cryogenic fuels, like methane or hydrogen, are often used as coolants and they may behave as transcritical fluids flowing in the jackets: after injection in a liquid state, a phase pseudo-change occurs along the chamber because of the heat released by combustion gases and coolants exiting as a vapour. Thus, in the development of such subsystems, important issues are focused on numerical methodologies adopted to simulate the fluid thermal behaviour inside the jackets, design procedures as well as manufacturing and technological process topics. The present paper includes the numerical thermal analyses regarding the cooling jacket belonging to the liquid oxygen/liquid methane demonstrator, realized in the framework of the HYPROB (HYdrocarbon PROpulsion test Bench) program. Numerical results considering the nominal operating conditions of cooling jackets in the methane-fuelled mode and the water-fed one are included in the case of the application of electrodeposition process for manufacturing. A comparison with a similar cooling jacket, realized through the conventional brazing process, is addressed to underline the benefits of the application of electrodeposition technology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Computational Methodologies for Aerospace Propulsion)
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23 pages, 1225 KiB  
Article
Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Longitudinal Oscillations in Hall Thrusters
by Vittorio Giannetti, Manuel Martín Saravia, Luca Leporini, Simone Camarri and Tommaso Andreussi
Aerospace 2021, 8(6), 148; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/aerospace8060148 - 26 May 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3273
Abstract
One of the main oscillatory modes found ubiquitously in Hall thrusters is the so-called breathing mode. This is recognized as a relatively low-frequency (10–30 kHz), longitudinal oscillation of the discharge current and plasma parameters. In this paper, we present a synergic experimental and [...] Read more.
One of the main oscillatory modes found ubiquitously in Hall thrusters is the so-called breathing mode. This is recognized as a relatively low-frequency (10–30 kHz), longitudinal oscillation of the discharge current and plasma parameters. In this paper, we present a synergic experimental and numerical investigation of the breathing mode in a 5 kW-class Hall thruster. To this aim, we propose the use of an informed 1D fully-fluid model to provide augmented data with respect to available experimental measurements. The experimental data consists of two datasets, i.e., the discharge current signal and the local near-plume plasma properties measured at high-frequency with a fast-diving triple Langmuir probe. The model is calibrated on the discharge current signal and its accuracy is assessed by comparing predictions against the available measurements of the near-plume plasma properties. It is shown that the model can be calibrated using the discharge current signal, which is easy to measure, and that, once calibrated, it can predict with reasonable accuracy the spatio-temporal distributions of the plasma properties, which would be difficult to measure or estimate otherwise. Finally, we describe how the augmented data obtained through the combination of experiments and calibrated model can provide insight into the breathing mode oscillations and the evolution of plasma properties. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Computational Methodologies for Aerospace Propulsion)
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22 pages, 3650 KiB  
Article
Numerical Aspects of Particle-in-Cell Simulations for Plasma-Motion Modeling of Electric Thrusters
by Giuseppe Gallo, Adriano Isoldi, Dario Del Gatto, Raffaele Savino, Amedeo Capozzoli, Claudio Curcio and Angelo Liseno
Aerospace 2021, 8(5), 138; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/aerospace8050138 - 15 May 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3127
Abstract
The present work is focused on a detailed description of an in-house, particle-in-cell code developed by the authors, whose main aim is to perform highly accurate plasma simulations on an off-the-shelf computing platform in a relatively short computational time, despite the large number [...] Read more.
The present work is focused on a detailed description of an in-house, particle-in-cell code developed by the authors, whose main aim is to perform highly accurate plasma simulations on an off-the-shelf computing platform in a relatively short computational time, despite the large number of macro-particles employed in the computation. A smart strategy to set up the code is proposed, and in particular, the parallel calculation in GPU is explored as a possible solution for the reduction in computing time. An application on a Hall-effect thruster is shown to validate the PIC numerical model and to highlight the strengths of introducing highly accurate schemes for the electric field interpolation and the macroparticle trajectory integration in the time. A further application on a helicon double-layer thruster is presented, in which the particle-in-cell (PIC) code is used as a fast tool to analyze the performance of these specific electric motors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Computational Methodologies for Aerospace Propulsion)
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