A refined design method for precoolers with consideration of multi-parameter variations based on low-dimensional analysis

The precooler is a distinctive component of precooled air-breathing engines but constitutes a challenge to conventional thermal design methods. The latter are based upon assumptions that often reveal to be limited for precooler design. In this paper, a refined design method considering the variations of fluid thermophysical properties, flow area and thermal parameters distortion, was proposed to remediate their limitations. Firstly, the precooler was discretized into a fixed number of sub-microtubes based on a new discretization criterion. Next, in-house one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) segmented models were established for rapid thermal design and precooler rating with non-uniform airflow, respectively. The heat transfer experimental studies of supercritical hydrocarbon fuel were performed to verify the Jackson correlation for precooler design and the in-house models were validated against the reported data from open literature. On this basis, the proposed method was employed for the design analysis of hydrocarbon fuel precoolers for precooled-Turbine Based Combined Cycle (TBCC) engines. The results show that the local performance of precoolers is intrinsically impacted by the aforementioned three variations. In the case study, the local heat transfer performance is drastically affected by coolant flow transition. While the circumferential temperature distortion of airflow is weakened by heat transfer. With consideration of additional parameter variations, this novel method improves design accuracy and shortens the design time.