Life analysis of regenerative-cooling thrust chamber

Thrust chamber is an important part of liquid rocket engine (LRE), which always uses the structure of regenerative-cooling channels in order to lower the temperature of the wall. With the concept of reusability of LRE is advanced, the life analysis of regenerative-cooling chamber should be carried out. The one-dimensional heat-transfer model and mathematical model of chamber was built, and the parameters of flow field and heat-transfer along the axis were got and applied as the boundary load of the chamber in this paper. A critical section along the radius was applied as the study object, and the thermal-fatigue analysis, including thermal analysis and nonlinear structural analysis, was carried out to get the strain of key points used for the calculation of cyclic life of chamber. The results show that the throat of the regenerative-cooling chamber is the critical section when having the life research, and all the damage modes in thermal-fatigue analysis bring about the damage of the thrust chamber.