Review on spray characteristics of liquid–liquid injectors in liquid rocket engines

Abstract

Impinging-jet injectors, liquid–liquid coaxial swirl injectors, and liquid–liquid pintle injectors are representative liquid–liquid injectors in liquid rocket engines (LRE). For these liquid–liquid injectors, the atomization processes all involve the liquid impingement, including jet–jet, sheet–sheet, and jets/sheet–sheet impingement, respectively. After impingement, a liquid sheet forms and fragments. Based on these similarities, reviewing published literature on the spray characteristics of these three liquid–liquid injectors in LRE is necessary and will facilitate the investigation of spray characteristics of liquid–liquid pintle injectors to meet the progress of variable-thrust LRE. This review covers the following aspects of these injectors: basic spray morphology, liquid sheet characteristics and disintegration mechanisms, and atomization characteristics. For impinging-jet injectors, rim instability and impact wave play crucial roles in spray morphology and disintegration. Jet Weber number is of great importance for liquid sheet breakup length and mean droplet diameter. In the case of liquid–liquid coaxial swirl injectors, the overall spray morphology is similar to that of pressure swirl injectors, but it may feature two separate liquid sheets. The recess length strongly influences spray morphology, spray angle, breakup length, and Sauter mean diameter. Liquid–liquid pintle injectors can be simplified to injection element, in which the spray morphology resembles a cloak-like shape. In a complete pintle injector, the spray forms a conical liquid sheet. Momentum ratio proves to be the most significant parameter for predicting spray angle. Although the review indicates substantial progress has been made in understanding spray characteristics of liquid–liquid injectors, there remain several shortcomings that require further research, particularly for pintle injectors, which can be learned from the other two injectors.