Patent ID: 8776494

Claim:
A method of cooling a rocket motor component comprising: injecting a high pressure liquid coolant through an injector nozzle into a cooling chamber, the cooling chamber having a pressure lower than the high pressure liquid coolant; flashing the liquid coolant into a saturated liquid-vapor coolant mixture in the cooling chamber, wherein the saturated liquid-vapor coolant mixture is at equilibrium at the lower pressure of the cooling chamber, wherein the cooling chamber is thermally coupled to a rocket motor component to be cooled; absorbing heat from the rocket motor component to be cooled; converting a portion of the liquid portion of the saturated liquid-vapor coolant mixture into gas phase, the converted portion being less than 100% of the coolant contained within the cooling chamber; releasing a portion of the coolant from the cooling chamber into a combustion chamber of the rocket motor; and maintaining the coolant in the cooling chamber at less than 100% gas phase of the coolant.