SIMULATION OF SUPERSONIC FLOW CHARACTERISTICS IN A GROOVED DIVERGENT ROCKET NOZZLE USING COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

The convergent-divergent design of the nozzle of a rocket engine is the most defining part of it. The nature of the nozzle design enables it to convert the high pressure, temperature and relatively low velocity adiabatic expanding gaseous fluids into very high velocity and thrust gases. The rapidly exiting gas as a consequence of the rapid expansion process results in low pressure and temperature. It is critical in research to find out the influence of modification (grooves) would have in the application and design of a reaction device such as a rocket engine. The Computational Fluid Dynamics software, Analysis System (ANSYS) was employed together with necessary boundary conditions to design and simulate such a modified rocket engine nozzle. The interaction and relationship existing among the pressure, velocity, Mach number and temperature in the grooved divergent rocket nozzle was found and observed. From the plots and nozzle simulation contours, both velocity and Mach number increased rapidly along the nozzle area but decreased steadily. Pressure varied directly withtemperature and inversely with density. It is observed that divergent nozzle grooving influences the velocity, Mach number, pressure and temperature within the divergent nozzle area of a rocket nozzle.