Numerical study on reaction and heat transfer of supercritical aviation kerosene with pyrolysis and steam reforming in a corrugated cooling channel

Coking and heat transfer deterioration of supercritical aviation kerosene pose grave challenges to regenerative cooling of scramjet engines. In the present study, reaction and heat transfer characteristics of supercritical China aviation kerosene No. 3, RP-3 undergoing simultaneous pyrolysis and steam reforming reactions in a corrugated channel are numerically studied. Compared with reacting flow of RP-3 in the smooth channel, temperature and coke deposition are much lower in majority part of the corrugated channel. The maximum temperature difference between the smooth and corrugated channels is up to 300K. The maximum heat transfer coefficient in the corrugated channel is almost three times of that in the smooth channel under the same condition. However, low-velocity and high-temperature zones are formed near the corrugated micro-structures and cause coke accumulation and heat transfer deterioration along the flow direction of the corrugated channel. With the increase of wall heat flux, both temperature and velocity increase significantly in the corrugated channel. The conversion of RP-3 and formation of coke are also enhanced with increasing wall heat flux. Moreover, the total heat transfer coefficient first increases and then decreases with wall heat flux. The maximum total heat transfer coefficient increases from 4000W/m²∙K to 18,000W/m²∙K with wall heat flux increasing from 0.3MW/m² to 1.8MW/m². Periodic wavy structures are found at the interface between the corrugated micro-structure and the bulk flow, which is pronounced when wall heat flux is 1.3MW/m² or above. With the increase of flow time, local turbulent kinetic energy decreases due to the interaction between the corrugated micro-structures and the wavy structures. The interaction between the corrugated structures and complex reaction and heat transfer leads to intersection of the distributions of temperature and coke in the smooth and the corrugated channels. An empirical heat transfer correlation formula is obtained as Nu=0.1Re^0.65Pr^1.94 for RP-3 reacting flow in the corrugated channel. The study provides better insight into interaction mechanism between chemically reacting flow and micro corrugated structures.