Performance Validation of an Aerospike Nozzle

Simplified design and analysis of Aerospike nozzle and the results of tests are presented. To increase the performance of the existing rocket engines, new techniques have been adapted in the nozzle design. One such technique is introduction of aerospike nozzle. It demonstrates globally better performance compared to the existing proven bell nozzle. The present work investigates the design, flow analysis of aerospike nozzle for the sea level and the results obtained are validated with the existing bell nozzle. The flow over the aerospike nozzle is analyzed in more detail using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in condition corresponding to a static fire test. Based on this analysis, the approximate design method used for determining the aerospike nozzle shape is shown to yield a highly efficient nozzle. The existing 7.3 KN bell nozzle developed by LPSC has been taken as a reference for the development of aerospike nozzle. Modeling and meshing of this aerospike nozzle is done by using Gambit software. Flow analysis is done using CFD techniques in fluent software.