Performance Reliability Analysis of a Liquid Oxygen/Methane Thrust Chamber Based on Firing Tests

Abstract

In this paper, hot firing tests of a laboratory-scale liquid oxygen/methane thrust chamber are introduced, and the proposed model for accurately calculating the thrust chamber performance is verified using the experimental data. Furthermore, according to a series of test data, the distribution characteristics of the stochastic system parameters, i.e., temperature and inlet pressure of the propellant are obtained and the thrust chamber performance reliability analysis based on the Monte Carlo simulation is carried out using the performance calculation model. Finally, the influence of random parameters on performance is quantified with the sensitive analysis, which is helpful to the design of the liquid oxygen/methane thrust chamber as well as the control of parameters in firing tests.