Study on main flow and fuel injector configurations for Scramjet applications

A parametric study of combustor inlet configuration for supersonic combustion ramjet (Scramjet) engine has been conducted by solving two-dimensional full Navier–Stokes equations. The main stream is air of Mach 5 entering through the configured inlet of the combustor and gaseous hydrogen is injected from the configured jet on the side wall. The parameters included are air stream angle and injection angle. On the effect of air stream angle, strong interaction between main and injecting flows can be observed for smaller angle causing sharp increase in mixing efficiency on the top of injector. Also high momentum of air stream towards the side wall causes no recirculation at the upstream of injector and the system becomes unable for flame holding. For the variation of injection angle, results show that in upstream of injector the mixing is dominated by recirculation and in downstream the mixing is dominated by mass concentration of hydrogen. Upstream recirculation is dominant for injecting angle 60° and 90°. Incorporating the various effects, perpendicular injection shows the maximum mixing efficiency and its large upstream recirculation region has a good flame holding capability.