Heat and mass transfer

Flow and Heat Transfer of Hydrocarbon Fuel in a Channel with Staggered-Side-Gap Micro Ribs

  • JIANG Yuguang ,
  • QI Yongjian ,
  • WANG Leqing ,
  • LIN Yong ,
  • FAN Wei
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  • School of Power and Energy, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China

Online published: 2025-03-05

Supported by

This paper is sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51906207, No. U22B2091), the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST (2021QNRC001) and Technical Field Foundation (2021-JCJQ-JJ-0342). The authors thank the reviewers for their valuable advice on this paper.

Copyright

Science Press, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, CAS and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024

Abstract

SCRamjet is exposed to severe thermal environments during hypersonic flights, which poses a serious challenge to the engine cooling technology. Regenerative cooling with hydrocarbon fuel is considered promising, in which the hydrocarbon fuel flows through micro channels (200 μm–3 mm) to absorb the combustion heat release. With strictly limited hydrocarbon fuel onboard, heat transfer deterioration and over-temperature are highly possible. In this paper, micro ribs with staggered side gaps are introduced and numerically studied to enhance the heat transfer. Compared with the straight channel and channel with straight micro ribs, the staggered side gaps alleviate the local low velocity zone and intensify the longitudinal and transverse vortexes. The heat transfer is obviously enhanced. Larger rib height enhances the heat transfer by stronger side gap effects at the cost of larger pressure loss. The best overall heat transfer factor η is achieved in the case of hrib/H=0.1, which increases by 204.5% comparing to the straight channel. When the rib interval is too small or too large, it approaches to the straight channel. The best overall heat transfer factor η is achieved in the case of L/prib=100, which increases by 212.9% comparing to the straight channel. It is known the improvement in the geometry of the ribs, i.e., the staggered-side-gap micro ribs, induces extra transverse vortex and improves the heat transfer performance more effectively. The research of this paper provides support for the cooling design of the SCRamjet.

Cite this article

JIANG Yuguang , QI Yongjian , WANG Leqing , LIN Yong , FAN Wei . Flow and Heat Transfer of Hydrocarbon Fuel in a Channel with Staggered-Side-Gap Micro Ribs[J]. Journal of Thermal Science, 2025 , 34(2) : 524 -541 . DOI: 10.1007/s11630-024-2073-2

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