MATTEO FIORE

PhD Graduate

PhD program:: XXXVI


supervisor: Francesco Nasuti
advisor: Francesco Nasuti

Thesis title: Critical aspects of modelling, design and experimental testing of LRE regenerative cooling systems

While the field of cooling for liquid propulsion systems is commonly viewed as mature, there are still numerous challenges demanding attention and a comprehensive understanding. This dissertation provides an insight of critical aspects that characterize liquid rocket engines regenerative cooling systems, on different levels: numerical modelling, system design, experimental testing. The first part of the thesis is intended to assess the limitations and predictive capabilities of simplified approaches to address complex phenomena in the context of design and development of liquid rocket engine cooling systems, to get results with reasonable accuracy in affordable times. In this framework, flow boiling and transient analyses of cooling systems during typical off-design engine operations have been investigated. The former topic intends to study two-phase flows in cooling channels from a macroscopic point of view, through the homogeneous equilibrium model, using both an in-house computational fluid dynamics solver and EcosimPro. Numerical predictions have been compared to experimental data and satisfactory agreement is obtained in the post-critical-heat-flux regime. The latter topic delves into a conjugate heat transfer approach, proposed to study the transient evolution of thermal fields during off-design operations of the cooling system, which are amongst the most critical for engine life due to the large thermal gradients that can be experienced. A simplified version of the RL10 regenerative cooling jacket is considered as a reference for the simulation of both chill-down and start-up transient of the engine. A complete overview of the strengths and the limits of the partitioned coupling approach is provided. The second part of the thesis is devoted to the investigation of design opportunities given by additive manufacturing techniques, which are becoming key technologies for the development of liquid rocket thrust chambers thanks to the reduced times and costs. Conjugate heat transfer simulations have been performed assuming different channel geometries with trapezoidal and ribbed cross-sections. Parametric analyses have been carried out and results compared to conventional rectangular shapes, comparing performance in terms of heat transfer and pressure drop. The advantages of additive manufacturing have also led a renewed interested towards aerospike nozzles, which have proven to be an efficient solution capable of yielding high performance in a wide range of chamber-to-ambient pressure ratio values with respect to conventional bell counterparts. However, despite the different design configurations proposed over the years, the thermal management has been one of the most challenging tasks to accomplish, especially for annular configurations. In the present work, a streamlined methodology is followed to find a possible design of a dual regenerative cooling system for an annular plug nozzle. The cooling system performance is then analyzed and critically discussed through conjugate heat transfer simulations. Eventually, the third part of the thesis addresses specific problems concerning the commissioning of a facility whose goal is to perform experimental investigations of heat transfer phenomena in 3D printed cooling channels.

Research products

11573/1714589 - 2024 - Module performance and heat transfer analysis of a clustered annular aerospike nozzle
Barbato, Vincenzo; Sereno, Alessio; Fiore, Matteo; Nasuti, Francesco - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
conference: Space Propulsion Conference 2024 (Glasgow, UK)
book: Proceedings of the space propulsion conference 2024 - ()

11573/1710431 - 2024 - Transient Analysis of Liquid Rocket Engine Chilldown and Startup by Conjugate Heat Transfer Approach
Fiore, M.; Barbato, V.; Nasuti, F. - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
conference: AIAA SciTech Forum and Exposition, 2024 (Orlando, Florida, USA)
book: AIAA SciTech Forum and Exposition, 2024 - ()

11573/1724731 - 2024 - Modeling postcritical two-phase heat transfer in EcosimPro/ESPSS environment
Fiore, Matteo; Fabiani, Marco; Nasuti, Francesco - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
conference: 9th Space Propulsion Conference (Glasgow, Scotland)
book: Proceedings of the 9th Space Propulsion Conference - ()

11573/1724728 - 2024 - Conjugate heat transfer numerical simulations of a methane-oxygen liquid rocket engine
Migliorino, Mario Tindaro; Grossi, Marco; Fabiani, Marco; Latini, Beatrice; Fiore, Matteo; Sereno, Alessio; Bianchi, Daniele; Nasuti, Francesco; Simone, Domenico; Liuzzi, Daniele - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
conference: 2024 Space Propulsion Conference (Glasgow; Scotland)
book: Proceedings of the 2024 Space Propulsion Conference - ()

11573/1646312 - 2024 - Design and evaluation of aerospike nozzles for an upper stage application
Nasuti, Francesco; Fiore, Matteo; Messina, Vincenzo; Valeriani, Alessio; Bianchi, Daniele - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
conference: 7th edition of the Space Propulsion Conference SP2020+1 (Online virtual conference)
book: Proceedings of the Space Propulsion Conference 2020+1 - ()

11573/1710425 - 2023 - Conjugate heat transfer applied to transitory analysis for rocket engine cooling systems design
Barbato, V.; Fiore, M.; Nasuti, F. - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
conference: 27th Congress of the Italian Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics, AIDAA 2023 (ita)
book: Materials Research Proceedings - ()

11573/1690923 - 2023 - Cooling system design for an upper-stage aerospike
Fiore, Matteo; Sereno, Alessio; Bianchi, Daniele; Nasuti, Francesco - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
conference: 34th International Symposium on Space Technology and Science (Kurume; Japan)
book: Proceedings of the 34th ISTS Conference - ()

11573/1697241 - 2023 - CFD simulations of flow in LREs rectangular cooling channels
Latini, Beatrice; Fiore, Matteo; De Maio, Mariangela; Pirozzoli, Sergio; Nasuti, Francesco - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
conference: 34th International Symposium on Space Technology and Science (Fukuoka, Japan)
book: Proceedings of the 34th International Symposium on Space Technology and Science - ()

11573/1706268 - 2023 - T(H)RUST: applied research activities on liquid rocket propulsion at Sapienza University of Rome
Nasuti, Francesco; Bianchi, Daniele; Migliorino, Mario Tindaro; Grossi, Marco; Fiore, Matteo; Rotondi, Marco; Zolla, Paolo Maria; Latini, Beatrice; Fabiani, Marco; Cocirla, Gianluca; Sereno, Alessio; Montanari, Alessandro; Barbato, Vincenzo - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
conference: IAC 2023 (Baku, Azerbaijan)
book: Proceedings of the International Astronautical Congress, IAC - ()

11573/1691308 - 2023 - Cooling system analysis of a clustered module aerospike for upper-stage applications
Sereno, Alessio; Fiore, Matteo; Bianchi, Daniele; Nasuti, Francesco - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
conference: Aerospace Europe Conference 2023 – 10ᵀᴴ EUCASS – 9ᵀᴴ CEAS (Lausanne)
book: Proceedings of Aerospace Europe Conference 2023 – 10ᵀᴴ EUCASS – 9ᵀᴴ CEAS - ()

11573/1650496 - 2022 - Hem modeling for subcritical flows in liquid rocket engine cooling systems
Fiore, Matteo; Nasuti, Francesco; Pizzarelli, Marco; Ierardo, Nicola - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
conference: AIAA Aviation 2022 Forum (Chicago; USA)
book: Proceedings of the AIAA Aviation Conference 2022 - (9781624106354)

11573/1642956 - 2022 - Modeling liquid rocket engine coolant flow and heat transfer in high roughness channels
Latini, Beatrice; Fiore, Matteo; Nasuti, Francesco - 01a Articolo in rivista
paper: AEROSPACE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (attuale: ELSEVIER FRANCE-EDITIONS SCIENTIFIQUES MEDICALES ELSEVIER, 23 RUE LINOIS, PARIS, FRANCE, 75724 -Dunod Gauthier Villars:15 rue Gossin, 92543 Montrouge France:011 33 1 40926527, 011 33 1 46565266, Fax: 011 33 1 40926597) pp. - - issn: 1270-9638 - wos: WOS:000811871600001 (6) - scopus: 2-s2.0-85131441629 (10)

11573/1665964 - 2022 - Analysis of coolant flow and heat transfer in highly rough channels for LRE
Latini, Beatrice; Fiore, Matteo; Nasuti, Francesco - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
conference: 9th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE FOR AERONAUTICS AND SPACE SCIENCES (EUCASS) (Lille, France)
book: Proceedings of the 9th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE FOR AERONAUTICS AND SPACE SCIENCES (EUCASS) - ()

11573/1706254 - 2022 - Student activities in manufacturing and launching advanced small-scale solid-propellant rockets
Migliorino, M. T.; Leone, M. G.; Lomanno, V.; De Rito, T.; Coluzzi, S.; Tortorolo, R.; Della Monica, M.; Cantiello, A.; Corradini, E.; Salustri, L.; Di Giovannandrea, C.; Fiore, M.; Bianchi, D. - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
conference: 73rd International Astronautical Congress, IAC 2022 (Paris, France)
book: Proceedings of the International Astronautical Congress, IAC - ()

11573/1657829 - 2022 - A design strategy for water-based noise suppression systems in liquid rocket engines firing tests
Zolla, Pm; Fiore, M; Lapenna, Pe; Bianchi, D; Nasuti, F - 01a Articolo in rivista
paper: CEAS SPACE JOURNAL (Council of European Aerospace Societies) pp. - - issn: 1868-2502 - wos: WOS:000843065100001 (1) - scopus: 2-s2.0-85136176078 (2)

11573/1646311 - 2021 - Heat transfer prediction in rough cooling channels for liquid rocket engines
Latini, Beatrice; Fiore, Matteo; Nasuti, Francesco - 04b Atto di convegno in volume
conference: International Congress of the Italian Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIDAA) (Pisa, Italy)
book: Proceedings of AIDAA 2021 - ()

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