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Updated: Sep 26, 2025

Improving the Combustion Performance of a Hybrid Rocket Engine using a Novel Fuel Grain with a Nested Helical Structure
Published on: January 18, 2021
Effect of Combustion Chamber Geometrical Parameters on the Decomposition and Combustion Characteristics of an
Yangyang Hou1, Yusong Yu1, Xuhui Liu2
1Hydrogen Energy and Space Propulsion Laboratory, School of Mechanical, Electronic and Control Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China.
Abstract:
In this paper, numerical simulations were used to study the decomposition and combustion processes inside the 0.2 N-class ADN-based thruster, and the effects of two geometrical parameters (length and diameter) of the combustion chamber on the combustion performance were evaluated. The decomposition and combustion processes of the thruster were simulated using a reduced chemical reaction mechanism with 22 components and 20 reactions steps. According to the distribution of the basic physical fields, the variation patterns of the pressure field, velocity field, temperature field, and key component parameters caused by different combustion chamber geometrical parameters were observed and analyzed. The results show that the specific impulse and thrust of the thruster increased and then decreased with the increase of the combustion chamber diameter. When the combustion chamber diameter is 7.9 mm, the specific impulse reaches the maximum value of 206.6 s. Additionally, the specific impulse increased from 186 s to 206 s when the combustion chamber length was changed from 7 mm to 11 mm; the specific impulse increased gradually but not significantly, and the growth trend started to flatten out. The results from the paper can serve as a reference for the design and vacuum testing of an ADN-based thruster.
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