Study on Matching Characteristics of Pre-cooling Air Turbo Rocket Engine

The pre-cooling air turbo rocket (PATR) engine, designed to operate with high propulsion efficiency and within a wide operating range, is one of the most promising and effective reusable single-stage in-orbit power solutions. The matching characteristics of the supersonic inlet and the engine directly affect the feasibility and overall performance of the engine scheme. The wide operating envelope of a PATR engine requires excellent operating performance in the full range of flight envelope, as well as needing the inlet and the engine to maintain good matching performance. Therefore, matching the inlet and the engine is recognized as a critical and challenging problem. In this paper, a three-dimensional system-level simulation model is established for a PATR engine with a bilateral mixed-compression supersonic inlet. The 3D numerical calculation of the internal flow field of a PATR engine was carried out to simulate its free jet test. The flow field characteristics of the inner channel and the matching characteristics between the inlet and the turbine during the starting process of the engine are obtained. The work studied in this paper can provide data reference for the development and flight test of a PATR engine.