Papers by Michele Ferraiuolo
The HYPROB Program, developed by the Italian Aerospace Research Centre, has the aim of increasing... more The HYPROB Program, developed by the Italian Aerospace Research Centre, has the aim of increasing the Italian system design and manufacturing capabilities on liquid oxygen-hydrocarbon rocket engines; the most important activity is represented by the development and testing of a ground engine demonstrator of three tons thrust based on methane as propellant. The demonstrator baseline concept is featured by 18 injectors and is regeneratively cooled by using liquid methane. The cooling system has a counter-flow architecture and is made by 96 axial channels; methane enters the channels in the nozzle region in supercritical liquid condition, is heated by the combustion gases along the cooling jacket and then is injected into the combustion chamber as a supercritical gas. The goal of the present paper is to describe the activities supporting the cooling jacket design, aiming at identifying the optimal configuration of the cooling channels. 3-D CFD analyses have been performed on different cooling channel arrangements, in terms of channel height and rib width. Moreover, simulations described the thermo-fluid dynamic behavior of methane by means of NIST real gas modeling and they were necessary to give the proper input to the thermo-structural analyses in order to verify the most critical sections of the cooling jacket.
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Journal of heat transfer, May 5, 2009
Within the framework of the European Experimental Re-entry Test Bed (EXPERT) Program, aimed at im... more Within the framework of the European Experimental Re-entry Test Bed (EXPERT) Program, aimed at improving the understanding of physical phenomena occurring during the return of space vehicles from space to earth, the design of a flying winged experimental payload has been performed in order to assess the thermomechanical behavior and resistance of ultrahigh temperature ceramics (UHTC) in real flight aerothermal environment. The EXPERT flying winglet article is intended to reproduce such conditions. Particular interest covers the design of the interfaces between the UHTC winglet and the EXPERT capsule thermal protection systems since thermal stresses arise during the re-entry phase. The fixation of the winglet to the capsule is achieved by means of dedicated bolts that must tolerate mechanical loads occurring at the first stages of the flight, that is, lift-off, ascent, and separation stages. The thermostructural design is performed by employing ANSYS/Workbench finite element commercial code; simulations take into account transient thermostructural loading conditions, the elastic-fragile behavior of the ceramic materials, and the temperature dependent elastic-plastic behavior of the capsule thermal protection systems. In the postprocessing phase, UHTC critical areas have been identified by following two different approaches. The first approach is deterministic and consists in applying a maximum stress criterion, the stress at a node is compared with the temperature dependent strength at that node. The second approach, which is commonly employed for elastic-fragile materials, is probabilistic and consists in applying a Weibull-like failure criterion. Thermal and structural analyses simulating the re-entry phase have demonstrated that the maximum stresses and temperatures evaluated do not exceed their corresponding limits. Then, a configuration respecting all the requirements of the design has been identified, and its thermal and mechanical performances are discussed in detail.
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Composite Structures, 2019
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International Journal of Heat and Technology, Oct 31, 2016
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Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance, Feb 12, 2019
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Applied sciences, Oct 29, 2020
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Metals, Feb 24, 2023
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Heat Transfer Engineering, May 10, 2019
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Materials, Aug 7, 2022
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ABSTRACT In the frame of the HYPROB/Bread project, whose main goal is to design build and test a ... more ABSTRACT In the frame of the HYPROB/Bread project, whose main goal is to design build and test a 30 kN regeneratively cooled thrust chamber, a breadboard has been conceived in order to evaluate the thermal properties of methane in supercritical conditions. The breadboard is called MTP (Methane Thermal Properties) and it is made of Glidcop Al 15. The heating process of the breadboard is obtained by means of Nickel- Chrome wire wrapped cartridges. The methane flows through a rectangular cross section with a mass flow rate of 20 g/s. The aim of the present paper is to illustrate the thermostructural design conducted on the breadboard by means of a Finite Element Method code taking into account the viscoplastic behaviour of Glidcop Al 15. An optimization process has been carried out in order to keep the structural integrity of the breadboard maximizing the life cycles of the component.
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Today’s rocket engines regeneratively cooled using high energy cryogenic propellants (e.g. LOX an... more Today’s rocket engines regeneratively cooled using high energy cryogenic propellants (e.g. LOX and LH2, LOX and LCH4) play a major role due to the high combustion enthalpy (10–13.4 kJ/kg) and the high specific impulse of these propellants. In the frame of the HYPROB/Bread project, whose main goal is to design build and test a 30 kN regeneratively cooled thrust chamber, a breadboard has been conceived in order to:• investigate the behavior of the injector that will be employed in the full scale final demonstrator,• to obtain a first estimate of the heat flux on the combustion chamber for models validation,• to implement a “battleship” chamber for a first verification of the stability of the combustionThe breadboard is called HS (Heat Sink) and it is made of CuCrZr (Copper Chromium Zirconium alloy), Inconel 718 and TZM (Titanium Zirconium Molybdenum alloy). The aim of the present paper is to illustrate the thermostructural design conducted on the breadboard by means of a Finite Element Method code taking into account the viscoplastic behavior of the adopted materials. An optimization process has been carried out in order to keep the structural integrity of the breadboard maximizing the life cycles of the component. Heat fluxes generated by combustion gases have been evaluated by means of CFD quick analyses, while convection and radiation with the external environment have not been considered in order to be as conservative as possible from a thermostructural point of view. Transient thermal analyses and static structural analyses have been performed by means of ANSYS code adopting an axisymmetric model of the chamber. These analyses have demonstrated that the Breadboard can withstand the design goal of 3 thermo-mechanical cycles with a safety factor equal to 4 considering a firing time equal to 3 seconds.Copyright © 2014 by ASME
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Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 2008
ABSTRACT The aim of the present work is to introduce a fast procedure to optimize thermal protect... more ABSTRACT The aim of the present work is to introduce a fast procedure to optimize thermal protection systems for re-entry vehicles subjected to high thermal loads. A simplified one-dimensional optimization process, performed in order to find the optimum design variables (lengths, sections etc.), is the first step of the proposed design procedure. Simultaneously, the most suitable materials able to sustain high temperatures and meeting the weight requirements are selected and positioned within the design layout. In this stage of the design procedure, simplified (generalized plane strain) FEM models are used when boundary and geometrical conditions allow the reduction of the degrees of freedom. Those simplified local FEM models can be useful because they are time-saving and very simple to build; they are essentially one dimensional and can be used for optimization processes in order to determine the optimum configuration with regard to weight, temperature and stresses. A triple-layer and a double-layer body, subjected to the same aero-thermal loads, have been optimized to minimize the overall weight. Full two and three-dimensional analyses are performed in order to validate those simplified models. Thermal-structural analyses and optimizations are executed by adopting the Ansys FEM code.
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regards to liquid oxygenmethane combustion, are currently on going. The main goal of the program ... more regards to liquid oxygenmethane combustion, are currently on going. The main goal of the program is to built and operate a full system demonstrator, class 3 tons, fed by liquid oxygen and liquid methane which becomes gaseous in the regenerative cooling channels. In order to follow an incremental approach in terms of system complexity, suitable design of a small scale breadboard to test critical sub-system components has been performed. The breadboard has been designed in order to investigate manly the characteristics of dierent injectors (either co-axial or swirl) for oxygen-methane combustion at high pressure and their eects on the ame before their use on a full scale engine. The calorimetric design of cooling disks will allow for the characterization of heat ux prole along the combustion chamber for numerical validation. Moreover, for the windowed version, non intrusive optical techniques will be used to investigate the injection, mixing and ame characteristics.
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49th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference, Jul 12, 2013
ABSTRACT The use of the Methane as coolant in a regenerative liquid rocket engine (LRE) presents ... more ABSTRACT The use of the Methane as coolant in a regenerative liquid rocket engine (LRE) presents some difficulties since transcritical fluidynamics operating conditions occur in the cooling channels. Transcritical conditions cause large fluid properties variation that strongly influences the coolant performance. The HYPROB program is carried out by CIRA under contract by the Italian Ministry of Research with the main objective to improve National system and technology capabilities on liquid rocket engines for future space applications, with specific regard to LOx/LCH4 technology. Among its objectives are the design and development of technology LRE demonstrators, including a specific breadboard based on an electrical heating to validate numerical methodologies and to improve the understanding of relevant physics of methane thermal properties in transcritical conditions.
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Computation (Basel), Mar 28, 2020
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Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 2008
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Applied sciences, Mar 28, 2022
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Papers by Michele Ferraiuolo