Experimental of combustion instability in NTO/MMH impinging combustion chambers

This paper presents an experimental study into dynamics of chamber pressure and heat release rate during self-excited spinning and standing azimuthal mode in NTO/MMH (nitrogen tetroxide/monomethylhydrazine) impinging combustion chambers. Nine cases including two combustion chamber configurations were conducted. The operating conditions of all unstable cases were located in the instability region according to Hewitt empirical correlation. The results show that chamber pressure oscillations keep pace with the corresponding OH* chemiluminescence intensity over the whole combustion region in the spinning and standing modes. It is indicated that the Rayleigh index is positive over the whole combustion area in all the unstable cases. A significant supersonic flame front structure of the first-order spinning mode was found in a cylindrical chamber, which means that a detonation wave could exist in the cylindrical chamber without a center body. The pressure and heat release rate oscillations at the pressure node are nonnegligible although their amplitudes are lower than those at the pressure antinode in the first-order standing mode with an annular chamber. Besides, the dominant frequency of pressure and heat release rate oscillations at the pressure node is twice as high as that at the pressure antinode.