Numerical Simulation of Coupling Thermal and Mechanical Influence on Submerged Nozzle in Solid Rocket Motor

The coupling thermal and mechanical effect on submerged nozzles is important in the design of modern rockets upon thermal loading and aerodynamic pressure. In this paper, a simulation with the subroutine of nonuniform pressure and nonuniform heat transfer coefficient was conducted to study the thermo-structural response of a submerged nozzle at the pressure 6 MPa and stagnation temperature 3200 K. Both the aerodynamic parameters and heat coefficients were obtained through analyzing the flow field. It was found that the thermal loading had an important influence on the stress of throat insert for the solid rocket motor (SRM). The hoop stress increases at first and then decreases with the increase of time for the throat insert. The ground hot firing test of SRM with a submerged nozzle was carried out. The experimental results showed that the structural integrity of the submerged nozzle is very normal during SRM operation. The present method is reasonable, which can be applied to study the thermo-structural response of submerged nozzle for SRM.