Abstract:
Regenerative cooling serves as a vital thermal protection approach for high-speed flight propulsion systems. Quantitatively revealing the fluid-solid coupled heat transfer rules in cooling micro-channels is crucial for the design and optimization of regeneration cooling structures. In this paper, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical simulation were conducted to systematically analyze the fluid-solid coupled heat transfer process of supercritical hydrocarbon fuel in microchannels. The effects of hydraulic diameter
D, wall thickness
u, cross-sectional shape, and other factors on parameters such as surface heat transfer coefficient
h, structural thermal resistance
Rc, and flow resistance pressure drop Δ
p were compared. Results indicate that, influenced by drastic thermophysical property variations of supercritical fluid, the heat transfer in regenerative cooling microchannels can be divided into the near-wall pseudo-boiling region, mainstream pseudo-boiling region, and fully developed turbulent heat transfer region. The surface heat transfer coefficient
h reaches its peak in the fully developed turbulent stage. Reducing hydraulic diameter
D enhances heat transfer but increases the flow resistance pressure drop Δ
p; when
D decreases from 3 mm to 1.73 mm, the channel pressure drop Δ
p increases approximately eightfold. Decreasing wall thickness
u or increasing rib thickness
B reduces structural thermal resistance
Rc and improves cooling effectiveness. For every 30% reduction in the
u/
D ratio, the average structural temperature decreases by about 1.7%. Comparing different channel configurations, rectangular channels with an aspect ratio AR = 1.5–2.0 and flow area
S ≈ 6 mm² demonstrate significant advantages in enhancing heat transfer and reducing flow resistance.