THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

Authors of this Paper

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Xin Wei

,

Feng Jin

,

Zhaohui Yao

,

Honghu Ji

NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION ON THE HEAT TRANSFER OF AIR/HELIUM PRECOOLER FOR AIR-BREATHING PRE-COOLED ENGINE

ABSTRACT
Installing a precooler behind the intake is an effective approach for hypersonic air-breathing pre-cooled engine to cool the hot incoming air. Synergetic air-breathing rocket engine is a revolutionary hypersonic air-breathing pre-cooled engine with complex thermodynamic cycle i.e. air cycle, helium cycle. Air/helium precooler is a key component and its configuration and operating condition have great effect on the performance characteristics of air-breathing pre-cooled engine. Thus, the minimum periodic flow and heat transfer model of the precooler are established. The effects of key parameters on the heat transfer performance of precooler are numerically studied. The results indicate that: when the tube row number increases from 7 to 15, the average heat transfer coefficient of air side decreases by 57%, the heat exchange rate increases by 19%, and effectiveness increases by 18.4%. The tube transverse pitch can enhance the heat transfer coefficient of air and helium side, while the heat exchange rate decreases by 33 % when the tube transverse pitch increases from 1.5 to 3.5. The helium inlet velocity can improve the heat transfer performance of precooler and reduce the flow resistance of air side.
KEYWORDS
Precooler, heat transfer coefficient, Helium coolant, numerical simulation, Air-breathing pre-cooled engine
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2023-04-03
PAPER REVISED: 2023-07-01
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2023-07-13
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2023-09-02
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI230403177W
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2024, VOLUME 28, ISSUE Issue 2, PAGES [913 - 927]
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Numerical investigation on the heat transfer of air/helium precooler for air-breathing pre-cooled engine

© 2024 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence