Evaluation of Fuel and Air Mixing in a Scramjet Engine Using an Asymmetric Strut-Based Fuel Injection Using CFD

ABSTRACT

In this paper, a new asymmetric strut-based fuel injection is proposed and investigated for enhanced fuel-air mixing and combustion in supersonic combustors. The strut configuration is re-designed from a general symmetric strut to asymmetric strut such that asymmetry in the strut creates the vortices along the Z-axis (longitudinal) after the flow crosses over the lip of the strut. In the downstream of the combustor, the flow circulation grows resulting in improved mixing of fuel and air. The fuel is injected from the strut about the centerline of the combustor. Due to the presence of vortices inside the combustor, the air and fuel mixes properly which significantly increases the mixing and combustion efficiency. Various performance parameters are compared with a symmetric strut case to present a quantitative comparison between two injection schemes to show the advantages of enhanced mixing due to the application of asymmetric struts in supersonic combustors.

KEYWORDS:

• SCRAMJET
• supersonic combustion
• asymmetric strut injection
• mixing efficiency
• combustion efficiency

Disclosure statement

The authors declare there is no conflict of interest.