Application of the Level Set Method to Solid Rocket Motor Simulation

Abstract

The body of work encompassed in this thesis merges two advanced concepts for developing flow solutions with level sets to develop an accurate and e cient method for simulating solid rocket motor grain regression. The level-set method has been implemented using the discontinous Galerkin numerical method (DGM) to represent the burning surface area and chamber volume as a function of time. The combination of DGM with geometrically arbitrary solid motors presents a unique and novel environment for solid rocket motor analysis, giving the user more freedom for design and a more accurate result. This thesis provides a complete background and introduction to both solid rocket motor research completed and currently underway as well as an introduction to computational uid dynamics and the level set method. Development of the LSM/DGM approach to the grain regression problem in two-dimensions is presented with complementary comparisons to analytical approaches. This work represents the rst known implementation of the discontinous Galerkin method with a level set to solve the grain regression problem.