Pressure-coupled vaporization and combustion responses of liquid oxygen (LOX) droplets in supercritical hydrogen environments

This paper presents a numerical simulation of liquidoxygen droplet vaporization and combustion under high pressure conditions in hydrogen quiescent atmospheres over a wide range of ambient conditions, including both subcritical and supercritical regimes. Theoretical 'modelization has been refined for thermodynamic behavior and transport properties estimations. In the case where gaseous water diffuses to oxygen droplet surface, a simplified condensation model has been implemented. In this paper, we focused our attention to droplet response to ambient pressure oscillations in terms of vaporization or combustion rate. Computations were carried out over a wide range of different ambient conditions for both purevaporization and combustion cases. Results can be a p plied to combustion instability studies of liquid rocket engines.