44th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference & Exhibit AIAA 2008-4556

21 - 23 July 2008, Hartford, CT

Flow Analysis of Transcritical Methane in Rectangular

Cooling Channels

Marco Pizzarelli,∗ Francesco Nasuti†, and Marcello Onofri‡

University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Roma, Italy

The knowledge of the flow behavior inside cooling channels is of great importance to
improve design and performance of regeneratively cooled rocket engines. The modeling
of the coolant flow is a challenging task because of its particular features, such as the
high wall temperature gradient, the high Reynolds number and the 3D-geometry of the
passages. In case of methane as coolant, a further complication is the transcritical operating
condition of the fluid. In this thermodynamic regime large changes of the fluid properties
can greatly influence the coolant flow field and the heat transfer. Numerical simulations
of transcritical methane flow field in asymmetrically heated rectangular channel with high
aspect ratio and strong wall temperature differences are carried out by a suitable Navier-
Stokes solver. Results are discussed in detail and compared with a supercritical flow field.
Finally the aspect ratio effect on transcritical methane flows is analyzed by comparison of
four different rectangular cooling channels geometries. Emphasis is given to the comparison
of wall heat flux distribution and fluid cooling performance.

Nomenclature

ṁ mass flow rate

Q̇ heat transfer rate
A cross section area
a speed of sound
AR channel aspect ratio
B channel width
cp specific heat at constant pressure
Dh hydraulic diameter
e internal energy
H channel height
k thermal conductivity
L channel length
m fluid mass
P cross section perimeter
p pressure
Q fluid energy
q heat flux
Re Reynolds number
T temperature
u velocity
x, y, z length, width, and height coordinates
Z compressibility factor
Subscripts
∗ Research Fellow, Dipartimento di Meccanica e Aeronautica, Via Eudossiana 18.
† Associate Professor, Ph.D., Dipartimento di Meccanica e Aeronautica, Via Eudossiana 18.
‡ Professor, Dipartimento di Meccanica e Aeronautica, Via Eudossiana 18.

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Copyright © 2008 by M.Pizzarelli, F.Nasuti, M.Onofri. Published Institute
by the American of Aeronautics
Institute and
of Aeronautics andAstronautics
Astronautics, Inc., with permission.
0 stagnation value
b bulk
c critical value
e exit
i inlet
max maximum
w wall
Symbols
µ viscosity
ρ density
ε thermal energy absorbed by the coolant per unit length and mass

I. Introduction
Liquid methane as a rocket engine fuel (together with liquid oxygen as the oxidizer) has been recently
considered as an interesting option for both space and launcher rocket engines. In the development of such
rocket engines, one of the aspects which has to be deepened is that of the thrust chamber cooling, especially if
the fuel itself is considered as the coolant fluid. In this case the fuel will flow in cooling channels surrounding
the thrust chamber; as a consequence the study of flow evolution in the channels becomes important both for
thrust chamber thermal design and for the system analysis in case of closed-cycle turbopump-fed engines.
In any case, if methane is considered as the coolant, it will typically enter the cooling channels with a
supercritical pressure and a subcritical temperature. As methane is heated up, due to the entering heat from
hot-gas, its temperature passes through the critical value (Tc = 190.53 K) and therefore its behavior can be
referred to as that of a “transcritical” fluid flow. This flow is substantially different from a “supercritical”
fluid flow (where pressure and temperature are far larger than their critical values) as many important
thermodynamic variables (such as specific heat at constant pressure, thermal conductivity and speed of
sound) exhibit a peak value in the vicinity of the critical temperature; in fact, the large change of the fluid
properties of a transcritical fluid can greatly influence heat transfer.
Although many studies have been carried out for supercritical-hydrogen flows in LOX/LH2 engines and
for supercritical-nitrogen flows in many cryogenic-research laboratories, transcritical methane flows inside
cooling channels have not been investigated yet. This lack has to be filled, especially if complex geometry
configuration of the cooling channels, such as high-aspect-ratio-cooling-channels (HARCC), have to be de-
signed. This configuration is widely adopted in high-performance liquid-propellant rocket engine as it offers
good cooling efficiency.1, 2 However, the peculiar geometry of HARCC and the highly asymmetric wall tem-
perature distribution along the channel periphery, makes coolant flow analysis important since the design
phase, because strong thermal stratification in the channel cross section is expected.
In this framework, goal of the present work is the study, by a proper in-house 3D-CFD solver,3 of
transcritical methane behavior inside cooling channels, especially in the case of high-aspect-ratio-cooling-
channels. In particular, the results obtained for a straight 3D channel with strong wall temperature gradients
and transcritical methane flow have been compared with those of supercritical methane flow for the same
channel geometry. This comparison underlines the peculiar behavior of transcritical fluid flow in cooling
channel. Moreover, numerical simulations have been carried out to analyze the aspect ratio effect on cooling
performance.

II. Numerical Method

CFD tools are typically set for perfect gases or incompressible fluids (i.e., ρ = const) so that they are
not suitable to describe the fluid-dynamics that occurs in some peculiar technological systems, like rocket
engines cooling channels, where fluid flows at supercritical pressure. In fact, in case of supercritical pressure,
the thermodynamic behavior of the fluid is not described by perfect gas or incompressible fluid equation
of state. Its behavior is that of a “compressible liquid” in the sense that its density is similar to that of
a liquid but its compressibility is non-zero. Moreover, in the supercritical region the fluid properties are
strong functions of both temperature and pressure.4 For this reason in the present study computations are
made by a CFD solver which has been developed in Ref. 3, and is able to deal with compressible fluids

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whose behavior is represented by a generic equation of state. In particular, the Reynolds Averaged Navier-
Stokes equations are solved by a Godunov-type finite volume scheme which is second-order accurate in space
and third-order accurate in time. Turbulence is taken into account by the one-equation model of Spalart-
Allmaras.5 The main feature of the CFD solver is that the governing equations have been considered in the
classic conservation form, without any characterization upon the thermodynamic behavior of the fluid.

III. Transcritical Fluid Flow in Rocket Engines

The thermodynamic properties of methane have been evaluated by the modified Benedict-Webb-Rubin
(MBWR) equation of state presented by Younglove:6
9 6
X X 2
p(ρ, T ) = Ai (T ) · ρi + Bj (T ) · ρ2j+1 · e−γρ (1)
i=1 j=1

where Ai (T ) and Bj (T ) are simple functions of temperature determined by a total of 32 parameters, which
are computed by least-squares interpolation of empirical data and γ is a constant coefficient. The reasons for
choosing MBWR equation of state have been presented in Ref. 3. Here it is only reminded that it shows high
accuracy to determine the correct pressure-volume-temperature behavior of a fluid and to compute specific
heat at constant pressure, speed of sound, and internal energy. The remaining necessary relations used in
conjunction with the MBWR are those for viscosity and thermal conductivity, which are also taken from
Ref. 6.

(a) PVT state diagram. (b) Specific heat at constant pressure, as a function of temper-
ature and for various pressures.
Figure 1. Methane state diagrams according to Eq. (1).

The resulting methane thermodynamic behavior is presented in Fig. 1(a) on a pressure-temperature

state diagram. In this diagram the critical point (identified by pressure pc = 45.98 bar and temperature
Tc = 190.53 K) is clearly visible, because above that pressure the phase-change no longer occurs and density
variation with temperature, although strong, is continuous: density ranges from 450 kg/m3 in the low-
temperature liquid-like region to 20 kg/m3 in the high-temperature gas-like region. Others thermodynamic
variables change dramatically with temperature in the case of supercritical pressure, such as specific heat
at constant pressure, speed of sound, viscosity and thermal conductivity. For example, specific heat at
constant pressure is presented as a function of temperature and for various pressures in Fig. 1(b). It is
evident that specific heat reaches an infinite value at the critical point and that it presents a peak value in
case of supercritical pressure. In particular, as pressure increases, the specific heat peak value reduces while
temperature of maximum cp (which is called “pseudo-critical temperature”) increases. The specific heat

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peak almost vanishes in case of very high pressure. Hence, strong specific heat variations are expected in
case of transcritical temperature, the variations being larger as the pressure gets closer to the critical value.
On the contrary, mild specific heat variations are expected both in case of temperature larger than the
pseudocritical value and in case of pressure far larger than its critical value. In case of subcritical pressure,
the specific heat maximum value is located at the saturated-liquid point while the minimum value is located
at the saturated-vapor point. The strong specific heat discontinuity at the saturation temperature is due
to the different thermal behavior of the liquid and the vapor. The discontinuity disappears at supercritical
pressure where phase change does not occur.

Figure 2. H2 and CH4 cooling channel operational condition, on a typical reduced pressure-temperature state diagram.

The different evolution of reduced pressure and temperature of methane and hydrogen flow in cooling
channels is qualitatively represented in Fig. 2. The typical thermodynamic state of the coolants is roughly
drawn on a reduced pressure-temperature state diagram of a generic fluid by a segment whose starting point
represents the coolant state at the inlet manifold. Then, along the channel length, pressure and temperature
increases because of friction and heat addition. Differences between the two coolant flows can be understood
looking to the behavior of constant pressure specific heat contour lines which are presented in Fig. 2. Note
that the specific heat has been nondimensionalized with its value of the perfect gas. In fact, constant
pressure is usually decomposed by the perfect gas contribution, which is a function of temperature only, and
a correction term depending on temperature and pressure:6

cp (p, T ) = cP G
p (T ) + ∆cp (p, T ) (2)

Note also that as methane and hydrogen specific heat contour lines show slight differences, only those of
methane are drawn for the purpose of the present qualitative comparison. The specific heat shows large
variations in the near-critical region (see also Fig. 1(b)); moreover, for p > 5pc it is possible to say that the
specific heat variations are weak and they influence the coolant flowfield only in a minor way. This is the
typical hydrogen cooling channel flow in which the pressure, generally over 100 bar, is far greater than the
critical value, which is pc = 12.93 bar. On the contrary, methane cooling channel flow is strongly affected by
the near critical behavior as its typical pressure and temperature are close to the critical value. This is due
to the fact that methane critical pressure is almost four times bigger than that of hydrogen. Similarly, the
coolant temperature increase seen in Fig. 2 is bigger in case of hydrogen than in case of methane because
hydrogen critical temperature (Tc = 32.98 K) is much smaller than that of methane. To sum up, the different
behavior of transcritical and supercritical fluid flow is evident. The transcritical fluid flow is characterized
by large specific heat variation while the supercritical behavior is not. The first regime occurs in cooling
channel flows when temperature crosses the pseudo-critical value and pressure is not to far from the critical
point and it is expected in LOX/methane rocket engines; the second regime occurs when temperature is
larger than the pseudocritical value or in case of pressure far from the critical point. The last condition

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generally characterizes cooling channel flows in LOX/hydrogen rocket engines.

IV. Results
IV.A. Test Cases
The analysis of cryogenic methane as a coolant has been performed considering three-dimensional straight
channels characterized by different aspect ratios of the cross section. The high Reynolds number condition of
the actual rocket engine cooling channels (Re up to 107 ) still represents a computational challenge because of
the very thin boundary layers, which require extremely fine grids and long computation times. To avoid these
difficulties, without loosing sight of the main phenomena that occur in cooling systems, channel dimensions
have been selected so that the Reynolds number is approximatively 100000; this means that the cross-
sectional area of the channel is much smaller than the actual ones. However, the present test case shows
the main features of the actual cooling passages: turbulent flow, high aspect ratio of the cross section,
non-uniform wall temperature distribution that induces thermal stratification, and transcritical fluid flow.
To show the channel aspect ratio effect, four different cross section geometries have been considered. More
precisely, the channel cross section area is an assigned common feature (A = 0.08 mm2 ) while the base and
the height of the cross section are varied in order to get different aspect ratios: 1, 2, 4, and √
8, respectively.
The length of the channels, which is the same for all test cases, is L = 30 mm. Because L/ A ' 100 it is
possible to say that the channel is long enough to ensure that, sufficiently far from the inlet section, the flow
is fully developed. This means that the flow is affected by the inlet configuration only by a small fraction
of the channel length. The dimensions of the four channel geometries are summarized in Table 1, together
with the resulting hydraulic diameter reported for the sake of comparison.

AR A [mm2 ] L [mm] B [mm] H [mm] Dh [mm] P [mm]

1 0.08 30 0.2828 0.2828 0.2828 1.1314
2 0.08 30 0.2000 0.4000 0.2666 1.2000
4 0.08 30 0.1414 0.5657 0.2263 1.4142
8 0.08 30 0.1000 0.8000 0.1777 1.8000

Table 1. Channel dimensions (in terms of cross area A, length L, base B, height H, and perimeter P ) for the selected
aspect ratios.

The inlet stagnation conditions are T0 = 130 K and p0 = 90 bar while the outflow static pressure is
p = 70 bar. The wall temperature is Tw = 130 K at the cold side, Tw = 600 K at the hot side and a
linear distribution of temperature is considered on the side wall to simulate the fin effect. Note that the
wall temperature at the cold side is equal to the stagnation inlet temperature to approximately simulate the
adiabatic wall condition that generally applies in the actual cooling channels. The flow conditions of this
test case reproduce the actual methane working conditions in high aspect ratio rocket cooling channels. In
fact, methane enters the channel having a supercritical stagnation pressure p0 = 90 bar and a subcritical
stagnation temperature T0 = 130 K while wall temperature ranges from Tw = 600 K at the hot-side to
the nearly adiabatic value Tw = 130 K at the cold-side. Each geometric configuration is characterized by
a different computational grid composed by I × J × K volumes along the base (I volumes), the height (J
volumes) and the length (K volumes) of the channel, respectively. Since the flow is symmetric with respect
to the vertical centerplane, only one-half of the physical domain is discretized and a symmetric flow condition
is imposed as boundary condition on the channel centerplane. The I × J × K volumes are clustered near
the walls to accurately describe the turbulent boundary layers (the non-dimensional parameter y + at wall
is of order 1). The mesh distribution of the four geometric configurations are shown in Fig. 3 and their
computational dimensions are summarized in Table 2.

IV.B. Flow Description of Test Case with AR=8

The peculiar flow behavior of transcritical methane inside the highest aspect ratio cooling channel (AR = 8)
is shown by pressure, temperature, density, and compressibility factor fields in Fig. 4, and by streamwise
velocity, specific heat at constant pressure, thermal conductivity and speed of sound fields in Fig. 5. These
figures show the evolution of the variables at different cross sections, from the inlet toward the exit, which

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(a) Mesh view of the cross sectional plane for the four channel (b) Three-dimensional mesh of the generic channel configura-
configurations. tion (the figure is not to scale).
Figure 3. Computational meshes schematic.

AR I (half-base) J (height) K (length)

1 25 50 30
2 24 50 30
4 22 54 30
8 20 60 30

Table 2. Number and distribution of the volumes used to discretize the four channel configuration.

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are located every 6 mm along the channel streamwise direction.

(a) Pressure (b) Temperature

(c) Density (d) Compressibility factor

Figure 4. Flow field at various cross sections of the channel for test case with AR = 8.

Methane enters the channel with a subcritical temperature, in a liquid-like state; in fact, due to the
low-temperature, high-pressure inlet condition, its density is over 400 kg/m3 (see Fig. 1(a)). Then it is
heated-up by the entering heat flux from the hot walls. As a consequence, the fluid accelerates while its
pressure decreases due to the friction force acting on the channel wall and the entering heat flux. However,
the pressure distribution (see Fig. 4(a)) is one-dimension like, regardless of the evident three-dimensional
geometry of the channel and of the asymmetric thermal boundary conditions. In fact, pressure variation in
a generic cross section always remains within 0.02%. The one-dimensional behavior of pressure is a direct
consequence of the constant cross-section, straight channel geometry.
Figure 4(b) shows temperature stratification at different cross sections: note that the high temperature
flow region, induced by the hot wall boundary conditions, grows as the fluid moves from the inlet to the exit
section but it remains close to the hot wall along the whole length. As a consequence, the fluid far from the
bottom wall is nearly at the inlet condition and an evident non-uniform thermal distribution occurs. This
effect is due to the highly different thermodynamic behavior of methane below and above the pseudo-critical
temperature: the high inertia of the high-density “cold” fluid is less affected by the entering heat flux with
respect to the low-density “hot” fluid. As it will be shown later, the strong non-uniform thermal stratification

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 (a) Streamwise velocity (b) Specific heat at constant pressure

(c) Thermal conductivity (d) Speed of sound

Figure 5. Flow field at various cross sections of the channel for test case with AR = 8.

between the “hot” and the “cold” regions of the cross section is also due to the thermal conduction and
specific heat (see Fig. 1(b)) peculiar behavior in the vicinity of the pseudo-critical temperature.
Figure 4(c) shows density stratification along the channel flow. Note that density varies more than one
order of magnitude, from the gas-like density 22 kg/m3 at T = 600 K in the lower part of the cross section
to the liquid-like density 405 kg/m3 at T = 130 K in the upper part of the cross section. Thus, it is
possible to say that in a single channel section two different thermodynamic behaviors coexist. The different
density behavior between “hot” and “cold” fluid can be easily visualized by means of the compressibility
factor (Fig. 4(d)); in fact, close to the hot-wall, methane behaves like a highly compressible fluid (i.e., a
gas) with Z ' 1, while close to the cold wall methane behaves like a low compressible fluid (i.e., a liquid)
with Z  1. Between these two regions, fluid is characterized neither like a gas nor like a liquid. The
highly different thermodynamic and fluid-dynamic behavior in a single channel cross section proves that an
adequate “non-standard” numerical technique must be employed to describe the peculiar flow inside cooling
channels.
The streamwise is asymmetrically distributed since the heating from the hot wall implies a greater flow
acceleration near the bottom wall than near the top wall (Fig. 5(a)). Moreover, the higher the density

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variation in the channel cross section, the higher the velocity difference in the core of the cross section.
Because the selected test case shows the maximum density variation that can be expected in methane
cooling channels, the non-uniform streamwise velocity distribution presented in Fig. 5(a) is the maximum
for such applications.
The specific heat at constant pressure, the thermal conductivity and the speed of sound along the channel
length are presented in Fig. 5(b), Fig. 5(c), and Fig. 5(d). Note that, because every channel section has a
constant pressure while temperature ranges from the minimum value 130 K to the maximum value 600 K,
thermodynamic parameters variation across a channel section is similar to the isobaric properties variation, as
seen in Fig. 1(b) for the case of specific heat at constant pressure. Therefore, thermal conductivity and speed
of sound show a minimum whereas constant pressure specific heat shows a maximum for a given pressure
(that is, for a given cross section); these values occur nearly at the pseudo-critical temperature. Since
the pseudo-critical temperature is close to the critical temperature, a maximum/minimum value of these
thermodynamic parameters in a given cross section is expected for a transcritical flow regime. Moreover,
the difference between the extremum and average value is more pronounced as the pressure approaches the
critical value. As a consequence the maximum difference of the considered thermodynamic parameters is
present at the channel exit where the pressure reaches its minimum value (p = 70 bar). At this pressure
level the maximum value of specific heat is four times higher than the perfect gas value (that is, the value
at T  Tc ) and the minimum value of thermal conductivity and speed of sound is four times lower. As
already mentioned, the presence of an extrema of many thermodynamic variables in every channel section
can strongly influence the flow field and thus the wall heat transfer. This behavior does not appear in the
case of supercritical fluid flow, like in the case of hydrogen cooling channels.
An evident consequence of the influence of the transcritical methane behavior on the flow field is the
thermal distribution presented in Fig. 4(b). In fact, because both the constant pressure specific heat,
which represents the capacity of a fluid to absorbe heat, and the thermal conductivity, which represents
the capacity of a fluid to transport heat, present their extremum in the central part of the channel section
(where temperature is nearly pseudo-critical), the heat flux from the lower part of the channel cannot diffuse
in the upper part: a sort of “thermal barrier” divides the channel section. Therefore the consequence of this
behavior is that the lower part of the cooling channel heats up while the upper part does not.
To better estimate the transcritical behavior of methane as coolant, a supercritical methane test case has
been considered. The geometric and computational characterization is the same as the above discussed test
case (AR = 8) as well as the inlet stagnation pressure and exit pressure (p0,i = 90 bar and pe = 70 bar). The
transcritical behavior has been simply removed imposing an inlet stagnation temperature above the pseudo-
critical value (T0,i = 220 K). As a consequence the wall temperature, imposed as a boundary condition,
ranges from Tw = 220 K at the cold side to Tw = 1000 K at the hot side; a linear wall temperature
distribution has been imposed on the side wall. Note that the hot wall temperature has been changed in
order to have the same temperature ratio between the hot and the cold wall for the two test cases. Since
both pressure and temperature are well over the critical point, the flow field is substantially different with
respect to the transcritical case.
The supercritical fluid flow behavior is shown by temperature, density, streamwise velocity and specific
heat at constant pressure fields in Fig. 6. Comparing the supercritical and the transcritical flow fields,
many differences can be pointed out. In particular, the temperature distribution of Fig. 6(a) is substantially
different from that of Fig. 4(b); in case of supercritical fluid temperature stratification at the channel exit
is almost the same as that imposed at the wall (linear temperature distribution), whereas in the case of
transcritical fluid, temperature distribution in every channel section is strongly affected by fluid properties
variation across the pseudo-critical temperature.
Density stratification is less intense than in the previous test case (Fig. 6(b)). In case of supercritical
fluid, at the channel exit, density ranges from 22 kg/m3 to 90 kg/m3 because its behavior is that of a dense
gas. Thus the coexistence ot two different thermodynamic behaviors shown in the transcritical test case does
not occur in the present supercritical test case.
Density distribution has a direct influence on the streamwise velocity. Comparison of Fig. 6(c) and
Fig. 5(a) makes evident that, in case of supercritical fluid, velocity distribution in the channel section core is
more uniform, although the maximum velocity is higher: umax = 207 m/s in case of supercritical fluid and
umax = 182 m/s in case of transcritical fluid.
Finally, the specific heat at constant pressure does not present any peak value (Fig. 6(d)) and its dis-
tribution on the most part of every channel cross section is almost constant to the value of 2900 J/kg K,

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 (a) Temperature (b) Density

(c) Streamwise velocity (d) Specific heat at constant pressure

Figure 6. Flow field at various cross sections of the channel, in case of supercritical test case with AR = 8.

which is well below the peak value of 12000 J/kg K seen in Fig. 5(b). Because also thermal conductivity is
a monotonic function of temperature in case of supercritical fluid, heat flows from the “hot” to the “cold”
regions of the channel without any “thermal barrier”, like that discussed in the case of transcritical fluid.

IV.C. Aspect ratio effect

The wall heat transfer distribution on the side wall (fin) and on the bottom wall at the channel exit, for the
four considered geometric configurations introduced in the previous section IV.A, is presented in Fig. 7. At
a first glance, it is evident that wall heat flux is zero in the proximity of the cross section corners.2 This
three-dimensional effect is due to the thickening of the boundary layer in that zones. In fact, the side-wall
boundary layer and the bottom-wall boundary layer interact with each other in the corner zone reducing the
temperature gradient, and thus wall heat flux. Moreover, on the side-wall the heat flux presents a maximum
value close to the bottom wall which significantly reduces when aspect ratio increases. It is almost 19 MW/m2
in case of AR = 1 and reduces to almost 11 MW/m2 in case of the highest AR. The maximum value of

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wall heat flux is due to the peak velocity value (see Fig. 5(a)) in the low-density part of the channel cross
section. Moreover, the heat flux distribution along the side wall tends to become flat at high aspect ratio.
This means that high aspect ratio geometric configuration distributes wall heat transfer in a better way and
thus coolant is heated more efficiently (i.e., coolant absorbs more heat from hot-gas). Note also that, as
temperature distribution is imposed at wall, a small amount of heat flux from the fluid to the wall is present
in the proximity of the top wall. Concerning wall heat flux distribution on the bottom wall, as the aspect
ratio increases, the heat flux reduces. In fact, wall heat flux in the center of the channel base is almost
20 MW/m2 in the case of AR = 1 and 7 MW/m2 in the case of AR = 8. Thus, it is possible to say that
high aspect ratio cooling channel absorbs more heat from the side wall than from the bottom wall.

(a) Side wall. (b) Bottom wall.

Figure 7. Wall heat flux distribution at the channel exit for the four different channel configurations.

To better quantify the aspect ratio effect on coolant heat transfer, the average heat transfer rate Q̇ per
unit length of the channel and mass flow rate ṁ of the coolant has been evaluated (Fig. 8(a)). This parameter
is defined by:
Z
1 dQ̇ 1 1 dQ
ε= = qw dPw = (3)
ṁ dx ṁ Pw m dx
where Pw is the perimeter of a given channel cross section at the generic streamwise abscissa x. This
parameter is of great importance as it represents the thermal energy Q absorbed by the unit mass m of
coolant in the unit length of the channel.
It is possible to consider this parameter as a valid estimation of the coolant efficiency. In Fig. 8(a)
the area subtended by the curve ε represents the total energy absorbed by the unit mass of coolant along
the whole length of the channel. As aspect ratio increases from AR = 1 to AR = 8, the energy absorbed
per unit mass is more than doubled: it is almost 0.19 MJ/kg in case of AR = 1 to 0.40 MJ/kg in case
of AR = 8. Moreover, the heat transfer rate reduces from the inlet to the exit by less than 50% for all
the considered channel configurations; the reduction along the streamwise direction is due to the decreasing
difference between the wall and the fluid temperature, which is the driving potential of the heat transfer in
a cooling channel. The increasing heat absorbing capacity with aspect ratio is due to the perimeter increase
with aspect ratio; in fact, having a constant cross sectional area from AR = 1 to AR = 8, the perimeter
increases by 60%. The positive influence of high aspect ratio on cooling performance is also due to the more
uniform distribution of wall heat flux around the channel periphery (see Fig. 7). The two combined effects
justify the increase of the cooling efficiency by more than 100% passing from AR = 1 to AR = 8.
The heat absorbed by the coolant causes its bulk temperature to increase between the channel inlet
section and the channel exit section. The bulk temperature is defined by:
Z
1
Tb = ρuT dA (4)
ṁ A

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 (a) Average heat transfer rate. (b) Bulk temperature.

(c) Pressure.
Figure 8. Distribution along the streamwise direction of heat transfer, temperature, and pressure for the four different
channel consfigurations.

where A is the channel cross-sectional area. Figure 8(b) shows that the higher the aspect ratio the larger the
temperature increase. This is a direct consequence of the increasing heat absorbing capacity with increasing
channel aspect ratio (Fig. 8(a)). Temperature increase is ∆Tb = 44.6 K in case of AR = 1 while it is almost
doubled (∆Tb = 83.0 K) in case of AR = 8.
The channel configuration has a strong effect also on the pressure behavior (Fig. 8(c)). Note that, as
the pressure is constant in each channel cross section, the pressure plotted in Fig. 8(c) does not present any
ambiguity about its definition in a given abscissa. Pressure loss is ∆p0 = 7.97 bar in case of AR = 1; in case of
AR = 8 it increases by 15%. The pressure loss increase with the channel aspect ratio is a direct consequence
of the increasing channel perimeter with respect to the cross area. In fact, as perimeter increases, the skin
friction acts on a larger surface and thus the pressure loss becomes larger.
Summarizing, it can be said that high aspect ratio has a positive influence on cooling efficiency, which
can be doubled passing from AR = 1 to AR = 8; however, increasing aspect ratio implies greater pressure
loss. Thus, an optimum geometric configuration must be sought for every specific application, in order to
optimize heat transfer and minimize pressure loss.

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 V. Conclusions
A proper 3D finite volume numerical tool to describe the turbulent three-dimensional flow of a generic
fluid has been used to study the behavior of transcritical methane inside cooling channels. Computations of
transcritical methane flows in a straight channel with high aspect ratio and working condition similar to those
expected in actual rocket engines have shown that the main three-dimensional phenomena are temperature
stratification, asymmetric velocity distribution, presence of specific heat peak value in every channel cross
section and heat transfer reduction at the channel corners. To better comprehend the peculiar behavior of
transcritical methane a comparison with supercritical methane flow has been studied as well. This analysis
has emphasized that the large fluid-properties variation that occur across the pseudo-critical temperature
strongly influences coolant temperature stratification and velocity distribution in every channel cross section.
Finally, the aspect ratio effect on cooling performances of transcritical methane flow has been analyzed
by comparing simulations on four different rectangular cooling channels. This analysis has confirmed that,
also for transcritical methane, high aspect ratio has a positive influence on cooling performances as, for a
given wall temperature distribution, the coolant takes up as much as twice heat passing from AR = 1 to
AR = 8. The cost of increased cooling efficiency is an increase of pressure loss, meaning that a trade-off
between this two aspects has to be made in the design phase.

Acknowledgments
The authors thank Prof. Renato Paciorri for the useful discussions. The study has been partially supported
by ESA/ESTEC and MIUR (the Italian Ministry of University and Research).

References
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Applications,” AIAA Paper 2007-5501, July 2007, 42nd AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference.
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