The effect of water on coking and heat transfer inhomogeneity of supercritical aviation kerosene in a curved mini-channel

Water addition to aviation kerosene draws increasing attention in increasing heat sink and suppressing coke formation for regenerative cooling of scramjet engines. However, the effect of water on flow, reaction and heat transfer, particularly the thermal inhomogeneity in curved cooling channel is rarely reported. In the present study, the effect of water on coking and heat transfer inhomogeneity characteristics of China aviation kerosene, RP-3 studied in a uniformly heated curved mini-channel. A transient three-dimensional numerical simulation model with hybrid pyrolysis and steam reforming reactions of RP-3 is established and validated. The results show that there exists serious mass and thermal stratification in the curved mini-channel due to secondary flow and species diffusion. Specifically, RP-3 and water are diffused to concentrate at the bottom heating wall surface while coke deposition and light gaseous species, e.g., H₂, CH₄, CO are concentrated at the top heating wall surface. The thermal difference between the top and bottom heating walls is significant. Temperature and coke content of the top heating wall are much higher than those of the bottom heating wall. The gas film and coke deposition formed at the top heating wall surface lead to serious heat transfer deterioration. Therefore, the heat transfer coefficient at the bottom wall of the curved channel is much higher than that of the top wall. Water addition enhances secondary flow and thus exacerbates the coking and heat transfer inhomogeneity in the curved cooling channel. With water content increasing from 0 to 15 wt%, the secondary flow velocity increases by 288.2%, the conversion of RP-3 increases by 114.8% and the average coke content on the heating walls decreases by 40%. Meanwhile, the average heat transfer coefficient increases by 33.9% at the bottom heating wall but decreases by 18.0% at the top heating wall with the increase of water content.