## Supersonic Retropropulsion CFD Analysis of a Reusable Vertical Landing Rocket

Studenteropgave: Speciale

• Mario Javier Rincon Perez
4. semester, Energiteknik, Kandidat (Kandidatuddannelse)
The future of rocket reusability and space democratisation currently relies in the effective use of Supersonic Retropropulsion (SRP) to return rocket stages to Earth. This thesis makes a specific study of compressible flows applied to a spacecraft's re-entry burn into Earth's atmosphere.
Due to SRP complex flow structure, an accurate study is performed by means of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Furthermore, the potential of the open source software OpenFOAM is tested and compared to the existing validation results from CFD and experimental SRP. Hence, the results of a CFD SRP simulation of a 60$^{\circ}$ sphere cone geometry, running a sweep of five different thrust values is performed. The results are matched and compared with the available experimental and computational studies available.
It has been found that OpenFOAM by means of its solver \textit{rhoCentralFoam} is capable to simulate the physics involving SRP. With a very inexpensive grid, flow structures and pressure field are captured with marginal accuracy, however, to enhance and fully validate its use for SRP applications, further research has to be performed due to the significant inaccuracies yielded in the pressure distribution.
Specialiseringsretning Termisk energi og procesteknik Engelsk 1 jun. 2018 81

### Billeder

Standoff data
Isentropic nozzle validation
Experimental BFI flow
Schlieren contours for different thrust coefficients
Schlieren contour con thrust coefficient 4.04
Schlieren contour for thrust coefficient 0.47
Validation of rhoCentralFoam for a de Laval nozzle with a normal shock in the diffuser
Mach number contours for different thrust coefficients
Mach number contour for thrust coefficient 0.47
Mach number contour for thrust coefficient 2.00
Pressure coefficient validation for low thrust cases
Pressure coefficient validation for high thrust cases
Experimental JPR flow
Schematic of simulated geometry
Definition of SRP flow
ID: 280250623