The staged combustion aft-injected hybrid (SCAIH) rocket motor is a promising design for the future of hybrid rocket propulsion. Advances in computational fluid dynamics and scientific computing have made computational modelling an effective tool in design and development. The focus of this thesis is the numerical modelling of the SCAIH rocket motor in a turbulent combustion, high-speed, reactive flow accounting for solid soot transport and radiative heat transfer. The SCAIH motor has a shear coaxial injector with liquid oxygen injected centrally at sub-critical conditions: 150K, 150m/s (Mach≈0.9), and a gas-generator gas-solid mixture of one-third carbon soot by mass injected in the annual opening at 1175K, and 460m/s (Mach≈0.6). Flow conditions in the near injector region and the flame anchoring mechanism are of particular interest. Overall, the flow is shown to exhibit instabilities and the flame is shown to anchor directly on the injector faceplate with temperatures in excess of 2700K.

The staged combustion aft-injected hybrid (SCAIH) rocket motor is a promising design for the future of hybrid rocket propulsion. Advances in computational fluid dynamics and scientific computing have made computational modelling an effective tool in design and development. The focus of this thesis is the numerical modelling of the SCAIH rocket motor in a turbulent combustion, high-speed, reactive flow accounting for solid soot transport and radiative heat transfer. The SCAIH motor has a shear coaxial injector with liquid oxygen injected centrally at sub-critical conditions: 150K, 150m/s (Mach≈0.9), and a gas-generator gas-solid mixture of one-third carbon soot by mass injected in the annual opening at 1175K, and 460m/s (Mach≈0.6). Flow conditions in the near injector region and the flame anchoring mechanism are of particular interest. Overall, the flow is shown to exhibit instabilities and the flame is shown to anchor directly on the injector faceplate with temperatures in excess of 2700K.