Heat-Exchanger Rocket Engine

The proposed rocket engine includes a combustion chamber actively cooled by liquid oxygen: Heat from the combustion chamber vaporizes the flowing liquid oxygen, and the absorption of latent heat of vaporization contributes to cooling of the combustion-chamber wall. The resulting high-vapor-quality (mostly vapor) two-phase flow of oxygen is then injected into the combustion chamber to burn with the fuel. Vaporization of the majority of the oxygen prior to injection renders the engine insensitive to wide variations of inlet conditions.