Jouke Hijlkema

The French Aerospace Lab ONERA | ONERA · DMAE - Department of Aerodynamics and Energetics Modeling

The novel stepped helix design consists of a series of solid fuel grain segments aligned in a rotated manner to produce a stepped helical fuel port configuration. The design increases the regression rate by facilitating augmented mixing and convective heat transfer, leveraging centrifugal forces to mitigate the wall-blowing effect that hinders heat...

One of the main challenges for sustainable lunar operations are the potential adverse effects on surface infra-structure caused by regolith particles, covering the lunar surface. Due to the lack of atmosphere, these particles are not affected by weathering and remain sharp and jagged. Thus, they can damage lander and/or launch vehi-cles whose engin...

Due to the regression of the burning fuel surface, the internal geometry of a hybrid rocket motor changes during operation. This implies a modification of the internal flow and the area of the wetted surface. The result is a change in mixing ratio and therefore a modification of the performances of the motor. This paper presents a genetic optimisat...

Previous research using Forward Facing Steps (FFS) and Backward Facing Steps (BFS) in the solid fuel grain demonstrated increased regression rates compared to a cylindrical single port. Nonetheless, it is important to assess the combustion instabilities induced by stepped geometries to anticipate (and solve) potential negative side effects. This pa...

We propose a new engine concept which is an evolution of the stepped design approach previously developed and investigated by the authors. The novel helical design consists of a series of solid fuel grain segments (polyethylene) that are rotated against each other to form a stepped helical fuel port. The stepped helix design increases the regressio...

We investigate a new design approach to increase the performance and versatility of Hybrid Rocket Engines. The concept is to calculate optimized fuel grain profiles according to different criteria (lower oxidizer-to-fuel ratio (O/F) shift and O/F values closer to stoichiometry) using a genetic algorithm. These idealized profiles are then approximat...

In this study, we investigate the effect of single steps inside the fuel grains of typical hybrid rocket motors numerically. Steps can be a promising candidate to increase the regression rate of hybrid engines. We show that simulations on simplified geometries yield surprisingly close numerical regression rate profiles when compared to experimental...

In this work, we assess the impact of stepped hybrid rocket solid fuel grains on the performance of the engine. The influence of Forward Facing Steps (FFS) and Backward Facing Steps (BFS) on the regression rate is analysed on two different cylindrical motors and one slab burner with optical access. Accessible post-processing allows to quantify the...

A system design tool allowing to simulate the complete operation of a hybrid rocket engine is developed in this paper. The algorithm of the application is made in such a way that allows the simulation of an element, an ensemble of elements or all the elements constituting a hybrid space propulsion system. The objective is to simulate and predict th...

Unlike classical pyrotechnical solutions such as black powders, laser ignition is a non-intrusive, scalable method making it an interesting ignition technique for solid propellants in academia. When studies focus on the solid propellant gas flow, the shape of the burning surface becomes crucial. It is usually necessary to have a burning surface as...

In this work, the effect of Forward Facing Steps (FFS) and Backward Facing Steps (BFS) on the Hybrid Rocket Engine's regression rate is investigated through test firings on both a classic cylindrical motor and a two-dimensional slab burner with optical access. It serves as a first experimental investigation into the proposal to distribute a set of...

A sensitivity analysis of a 1.5-D combustion chamber model of a hybrid rocket engine is performed in this paper. The goal is to assess the impact that some of the most important engine parameters have over its performances. Studies are carried out by considering three categories of parameters: the aerodynamic characteristics at the inlet of the cha...

A pseudo 2-D model for the cylindrical combustion chamber of a hybrid rocket is developed in this article with the purpose of its integration in a system design tool used for engine predesign phases. A compromise of simplicity and accuracy is thus required. Integral transient boundary layer equations are included and coupled with the mass and energ...

The low regression rate of Hybrid Rocket Engines (HREs) is one prominent characteristic that is addressed in most abstracts concerning hybrid propulsion. Over the years, researchers developed and investigated numerous ways to tackle the low regression rate problem of HREs. This article is a collection and assessment of these diverse methods and des...

In this work, a novel approach to increase the performance of a Hybrid Rocket Engine (HRE) by approximating any idealized fuel port geometry by steps inside the fuel grain is proposed. This work serves as a first investigation into the effect of single steps inside the fuel grains of a typical HRE. In numerical simulations, it is shown that forward...

The growing demand for cheaper space access calls for a more economically and environmentally sustainable approach for launchers. Concurrently, the shift to smaller satellites and the rise of constellations necessitate launchers capable of precise multi-payload/multi-orbit injection. ASCenSIon (Advancing Space Access Capabilities-Reusability and Mu...

Hybrid Rocket Engines (HREs) generate thrust by combining a liquid and a solid propellant. Given the hybrid nature, HREs possess several advantages over Liquid Rocket Engines (LREs) and Solid Rocket Motors (SRMs). Hybrid engines are cheaper and less complex than LREs while being safer and more sustainable than SRMs. HREs are throttleable as well as...

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-3495.vid A 1.5-D model for the cylindrical combustion chamber of a hybrid rocket is developed in this article with the purpose of its integration in a design system tool allowing to estimate the rocket performances. A compromise of simplicity and accuracy is then required in the formulation of...

The trend towards smaller satellites and mega-constellations has enormously changed the space sector and its uti-lisation in the last decades, allowing new players to enter the market and to introduce stringent requirements to enable a variety of novel applications. Alongside, also the launcher market is undergoing a transformation epoch: the devel...

Firing tests of a H2O2/polyethylene hybrid rocket motor were performed and analyzed in terms of pressure oscillations under various configurations, using liquid oxidizer injection or gaseous injection through a catalyzer. Most of the firing tests presented pressure oscillations in the range of 200–2000 Hz, provoked by periodic vortex shedding occur...

Numerical simulation is performed and compared with a firing test of an H2O2/polyethylene hybrid rocket engine equipped with a catalyzer. The simulation is performed assuming an axisymmetric flow, unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations are solved based on a single-phase flow. Stable pressure oscillations are observed during the firing t...

Hybrid propulsion generally combines a liquid oxidizer with a solid fuel. Compared to solid or bi-liquid engines, this type of propulsion offers advantages in terms of cost and flexibility. For several years, ONERA has been providing expertise in this area, both in experimental and numerical simulations. Various hybrid rocket motors have been desig...

Oxidizer injection plays a major role in the behaviour of hybrid rocket engines, especially regarding combustion efficiency and stability. This study aims to compare two firing tests with associated numerical simulations based on gaseous oxidizer axial or swirl injection through a catalyzer. The oxidizer and fuel couple used was H2O2(87.5 %)/HDPE....

Hybrid propulsion represents a good alternative to the more widely used liquid and solid systems. This technology combines some important specifications of the latters, as the possibility of reignition, thrust modulation, a higher specific impulse than solid systems, a greater simplicity and a lower cost than liquid systems. Nevertheless the highly...

This paper is devoted to a review of some recent studies conducted at ONERA within the framework of solid rocket propulsion for missiles, as well as space launchers. The viewpoint adopted is to present the physical phenomena studied using modeling, simulations and experimentations. Three major scientific topics will be investigated in this article:...

In this paper, we present a novel numerical approach for predicting the fluid flow in a solid rocket motor chamber with burning propellant grain. We use a high-order technique to track the regressing grain surface. Spectral convergence toward the exact burning surface is achieved thanks to Fourier differentiation. For the computation of the interna...

This article relates to work on numerical simulations supporting the experimental determination of the particle size distribution of liquid aluminium oxide droplets resulting from the combustion processes inside solid rocket motors. The droplets are sampled downstream from the fuel grain at a certain distance from the burning surface. This allows t...

Down-scaled solid propellant motors are a valuable tool in the study of thrust oscillations and the underlying, vortex-shedding-induced, pressure instabilities. These fluctuations, observed in large segmented solid rocket motors such as the Ariane 5 P230, impose a serious constraint on both structure and payload. This paper contains a survey of the...

Aeroacoustic instabilities in subscale solid rocket motors are studied by a combined experimental/numerical approach. The present work intends to focus on how these instabilities can be modified by rocket internal geometry, especially the presence of cavity. Numerical simulations are performed on several subscale rocket motors that have been experi...

In this paper, a random particle method, to simulate coalescence phenomena in dense liquid sprays, is directly derived from the underlying kinetic equation. Numerical results are shown, which prove the validity and the accuracy of this approach.

The paper presents the ONERA computational chain PHARAON for the numerical simulation of radiative heating. The chain is operational for martian reentry applications. First test results on a generic vehicle demonstrate the importance of the radiative heat flux on the rear part of the vehicle, due to the infrared radiation of CO and CO2 molecules....

During the development of Pre-X demonstrator supported by CNES , industrials are in charge of aerodynamic and aerothermodynamic defintion and characterisation of the vehicle. For this preliminary phase of the project, most of the time industrials only used Euler computations associated to boundary layer, so that a lot of parametric analysis can be...

/RESUME Aerothermodynamics (ATD) for Space Vehicles is raising a number of issues that are far from being fully understood. Among them, a number is concerned with other physical phenomena than pure ATD. This lecture is intended to present an updated view of the current knowledge about clearly identified ATD issues, with a special focus on these iss...

The paper presents the PHARAON platform and the ONERA solvers developed to study gas radiation of high temperature gases during atmospheric re-entries. The platform aims at facilitating dataset interchange between the different solvers involved in a radiation calculation, using a clearly defined data structure and a general interpolation tool. The...

Nous présentons dans cette Note une équation cinétique prenant en compte les collisions dans un spray dense de gouttelettes liquides transportées par un écoulement gazeux. Notre modèle repose sur l'hypothèse que toute collision donne lieu soit à un rebond élastique soit à une coalescence. Nous montrons que l'opérateur de collision obtenu possède de...

We propose in this Note, a kinetic equation which takes into account collisions occuring in a dense spray of liquid droplets carried by a gaz flow. Our model relies on the assumption that a collision results either in elastic rebound or in coalescence. The collision operator is proved to have similar properties to that of Boltzmann. This analogy al...