Various simplifications are introduced into the establishment of numerical models for problems with strong nonlinear interactions. The combustion of energetic materials in a chamber with moving boundaries is a typical example. This paper aims to establish a coupled numerical model for predicting the internal combustion in a launch process.
A two-fluid model is used to predict the fluid field induced by the propellant combustion. The moving boundary is located by using a finite element method. Based on a user subroutine interface in the commercial software ABAQUS, the development of the fluid field and the mechanical interactions is coupled with each other.
The paper is devoted to provide a coupled computational framework for predicting the propellant combustion in an expanding chamber. The coupling strategy is validated through predicting a pressure-driven piston system. Based on the validated computational framework, the two-phase reactive flows in a launch process is studied. The predicted parameters agree well with experimental measurements.
This paper provide a method to address the difficulties in realizing the dynamic interactions between multi-phase reactive flows and mechanical behaviors. The computational framework can be used as a research tool for investigating fluid field in a combustion chamber with moving boundaries.
