NUMERICAL STUDY OF HYDROGEN JET FLAMES IN SUPERSONIC FLOWS

: EFFECT OF SHOCK WAVES

J.-H. KIM, Y. YOON, J.-Y. CHOI and I.-S. JEUNG

Department of Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul KOREA

ABSTRACT investigation on the shock-enhanced mixing has been

performed in an axisymmetric combustor. A wedge is
A numerical study has been conducted to investigate the mounted on the side wall of the combustor in order to
effect of shock waves on the mixing characteristics and the interact the oblique shock waves with the flame. The shock
recirculation zone of a hydrogen jet diffusion flame in a waves due to the wedge is expected to create a radially
supersonic combustor. The general trends are compared inward/outward airflow to the flame, additional vorticity
with the experimental results obtained from the supersonic and an adverse pressure gradient [1]. Hence, the air
combustor at the University of Michigan. For the numerical entrainment rate and mixing rate are enhanced near the
simulation of supersonic diffusion flames, multi-species flame. Recirculation zones (or separation zones) behind the
Navier-Stokes equations and detailed chemistry reaction bluff-body can be elongated by the shock waves resulting
equations of H2-Air are considered. The k-co/k-8 blended in the extension of stability limit.
two equation turbulent model is used. Roe's FDS method Therefore, the purpose of the present investigation is to
and MUSCL method are used for convection fluxes in examine qualitatively the general effect of the shock waves
governing equations. Numerical results show that the on the combustion and mixing characteristics of a bluff-
mixing and combustion efficiencies are enhanced by using body stabilized hydrogen diffusion flame in a supersonic
the shock waves and are influenced by the location of air flow.
shock waves. Also, it is found that the size of recirculation
is elongated by the shock waves resulting in the Computational Model of Supersonic Combustor
improvement of flame stability. The flame shape of
supersonic flames is different in the flame-tip; it is not A schematic of the combustor model appears in Fig. 1.
closed but open as observed by the experiments. Generally, the combustor configuration follows that used in
the experiment by Huh et al[l], but an axisymetric
Introduction configuration is used in this study. A fuel jet is injected in
the Mach 2.5 air flow using a thick-lip fuel tube, which acts
As the need of the hypersonic civil and military as a bluff body. The combustor is 24cm in length and
transport has increased, investigation and development on 5.7cm in radial diameter at the fuel injection location. The
various propulsion concepts have been made. One of these inner diameter of the fuel nozzle (DF) is 0.70 cm and the
concepts is a SCRamjet(Supersonic Combustion Ramjet) outer diameter is 2.54cm. Combustor sidewalls diverge at
engine for the hypersonic flight ranges. In the SCRamjet 4° from the axis in order to prevent thermal choking.
engine, combustion occurs in supersonic flows and a thrust Wedges mounted on the diverging sidewalls are shown
is generated through a divergent supersonic nozzle. in Figs 2(a) and (b) in order to investigate the effect of
There are many fundamental problems to solve for shock waves. The angle of the wedge is 10° to the side-
developing the SCRamjet engine: (i) how to mix fuel and walls and the leading edge location of the wedge is varied
air efficiently, (ii) how to maintain stable flame within the from 1DF to 4DF downstream of the fuel injection plane,
combustor and (iii) how to cool the combustor wall. The where DF denotes the inner diameter of fuel nozzle.
mixing problem comes from the short residence time of the Hydrogen is injected at sonic velocity. Air is injected at
inlet air in hypersonic airplane engines. The flame stability velocity of Mach 2.5, where static temperature is 818 K and
depends on the temperature of air and the size of static pressure is 0.8 atm as shown in Table 1. These
recirculation zone. The cooling problem occurs due to the conditions correspond to the velocity and pressure at the
temperature increase at a supersonic combustor. combustor with the flight Mach number of 6 at 26km from
It was reported that shock waves enhance the fuel-air the sea level, where atmosphere temperature is 223 K and
mixing when an optimum oblique shock was introduced in pressure is 0.02 atm.
supersonic flames and substantial improvement in the
flame stability (blow-out limit) was achieved by the shock Governing Equations and Numerical Method
waves [1,2]. In the present study, a computational