Pressure oscillations and instability of working processes in the combustion chambers of solid rocket motors

Metal particles are widely used in space engineering to increase specific impulse and to supress acoustic instability of intra-champber processes. A numerical analysis of the internal injection-driven turbulent gas-particle flows is performed to improve the current understanding and modeling capabilities of the complex flow characteristics in the combustion chambers of solid rocket motors (SRMs) in presence of forced pressure oscillations. The two-phase flow is simulated with a combined Eulerian–Lagrangian approach. The Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations and transport equations of k–ε model are solved numerically for the gas. The particulate phase is simulated through a Lagrangian deterministic and stochastic tracking models to provide particle trajectories and particle concentration. The results obtained highlight the crucial significance of the particle dispersion in turbulent flowfield and high potential of statistical methods. Strong coupling between acoustic oscillations, vortical motion, turbulent fluctuations and particle dynamics is observed. •A numerical analysis of the internal injection-driven turbulent gas-particle flow is performed.•Coupling between turbulence, vortical flowfield and particle dynamics is taken into account.•Acoustic oscillations provide additional mechanism to energy transfer from periodic motion to turbulence.•The results obtained highlight the crucial significance of particle dispersion in turbulent flowfield.