PERCORP Enhancement for Improved Soot Modeling

PERCORP is a program that accurately predicts the exhaust constituents, including soot, in liquid propellant rocket engines. It was developed by Sierra Engineering Inc. (Sierra) for the Plume Phenomenology group (PRSA) at AFRL. In the last year PERCORPhas been enhanced as part of an MDA Phase II SBIR (F04611-01-C-0010) by incorporating a sophisticated barrier cooling module. This physical model of the entrainment of the fuel film cooling zones has been benchmarked against both hydrocarbon burning andamine burning rocket engine data. Comparisons between predicted signature and data for the updated model are very good. Sierra believes the plume analyses accuracy can be further improved by better modeling of soot destruction inside and outside theengine, soot productions in the plume, and modeling of soot morphology. For this Phase I SBIR we propose adding soot morphology to our current soot production model and creating an improved model for soot oxidation. The Phase II effort would assess theneeds for further fidelity improvement by benchmarking the extremely fuel-rich portions of the mechanism with data from small-scale rocket engine testing at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California. Successful completion of this workwill further improve our ability to accurately predict exhaust species concentrations in liquid rocket engine exhausts. Accurate prediction of exhaust constituents is paramount of accurate plume signature predictions, when continuum radiators, such assoot, are part of the exhaust plume. Improved signature prediction capability helps missile defense system designers create more reliable and accurate defense systems.