A computational study of multiple jet and wall interaction

In the fuel preburner of the Space Shuttle Main Engine, face plate, injector, and baffle erosion have been observed. The observed patterns of erosion suggest that flame attachment to the walls is a contributing factor. To better understand the physical phenomena involved, a portion of the preburner was modeled computationally. The simulated 'preburner' had three two-dimensional jets entering a cavity adjacent to a baffle. The computational model employed the Patankar Spalding algorithm with upwind differencing. The turbulence model was a standard k-epsilon model with wall functions. The effects of incoming boundary conditions on turbulent kinetic energy and dissipation, k and epsilon, was studied. The results indicate a very strong sensitivity to these boundary conditions over certain ranges of values.