Energy Conversion Characteristics and Modeling of Supercritical Hydrocarbon Fuel in Regenerative Cooling

During the cracking process of hydrocarbon fuel, the heat would be converted into internal energy and chemical energy. It is necessary to study the conversion relationship between internal energy and chemical energy in the abovementioned energy conversion process, which is of great significance for the efficient use of fuel heat sinks in the regenerative cooling process. Therefore, the influences of pressure, mass flow rate, wall heat flux, and heating rate on the energy conversion were investigated, and an empirical prediction model was developed. The numerical results revealed that the influence of pressure on heat sink mainly focuses on the low and medium conversion. The chemical heat sink decreases with the increase of the mass flow rate and the heating rate, while the chemical heat sink increases with the increase in the wall heat flux. In addition, based on the analysis of the numerical data, an energy conversion correlation is developed by the Buckingham PI theorem, and most of the data calculated by this correlation can satisfy the deviation bandwidth of ± 10%.