Coupled heat transfer and stress analysis of rocket combustion chambers

A coupled finite element fluid-structure interaction analysis of regeneratively cooled rocket combustion chambers, which allows the computation of the coolant flow and the heat conduction between the coolant and the combustion chambers structure will be presented. Furthermore, the resulting elastoplastic deformation of the combustion chamber under cyclic thermal and mechanical loading will be analyzed by finite element methods. The developed solution strategy of the thermomechanically coupled field problem will be studied and applied to the prediction of the heat transfer and thermal load induced deformation process of the European rocket engine 'Vulcain'.