The goal of this work was to simulate both the flow in a rocket engine nozzle and the resulting flow-induced transient loads on the nozzle. This unsteady nozzle flow results in structural dynamic excitation, which contributes not only to nozzle stress and deformation but also to the dynamic loads that are transmitted to the rest of the engine. This paper demonstrates the capability of a coupled fluid-structure interaction (FSI) simulation for predicting side loads on a rocket engine nozzle. The capability was demonstrated using the space shuttle main engine (SSME) during a portion of the engine startup sequence.
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