Calibrating the discharge coefficient (Cd) of our propellants is crucial to ensuring that mass flow rates, mixture ratio, and burn time are enforced. We intend on calculating the Cd of our fuel flow through a water flow testing campaign.
This is the current test setup to obtain Cd of the fuel flow. For the annulus characterization, the tank will be filled up to ~87% of the nominal amount, as film cooling holes will not be drilled yet. For the film cooling hole characterization, the holes will be drilled, and the carrier will be bored out to expose the holes. For these tests, we will fill the water tank with 100% of the nominal amount. The aluminum carrier underneath the injector is to inlet fuel and prevent that fuel from leaking; in the second image, you can see the fuel port inletting fluid from the bottom of this carrier. The port on the right in the first image will link to a pressure transducer. We intend on performing multiple water flow tests across different injector dP's to properly characterize Cd.