Computational work in SCRamjet engine

for combustion – A review

Santanu Borah
(18-22-110)
M.Tech, Thermal Engineering,
NIT Silchar

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 Introduction
 Rockets are heavy because it has to carry liquid oxygen along
with liquid fuel to create thrust
 However if rockets are made air-breathing i.e. no liquid
oxygen tank is required to carry to space, its size and weight
can be reduced or more payload can be carried.
 Here comes the application of Ramjet and Scramjet engine.

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 What is SCRamjet Engine?
 SCRamjet means Supersonic Combustion Ramjet engine.
 Unlike Ramjet air breathing combustion engine, it does not
have any moving parts like turbine or compressor.
 Instead it utilizes its supersonic speed of the engine to ram
the incoming air flowing through the inlet nozzle thereby
reducing the speed of the air flow slightly but the flow
remain in supersonic speed inside the combustion chamber.

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 Components of Scramjet engine
Scramjet engine has following 3 basic components
 A converging inlet where incoming air is compressed and
decelerated.
 A combustor where gaseous fuel is burnt with atmospheric
oxygen to produce heat.
 A diverging nozzle where heated air is accelerated to
produce thrust.

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 Working principle
 Scramjet engine is required to be integrated with a rocket to
get the initial speed Mach>3
 Atmospheric air enters the inlet passage of the engine in very
high speed which is reduced in the diffuser section, thereby
its static pressure increases.
 The temperature of air increases when passing through
narrow cross section towards combustion chamber
 Hot air flows into the combustion chamber and at this
moment the propellant i.e. hydrogen is injected by injector
in the combustor.

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 Working principle contind.
 The fuel air mixture is self-ignited within a millisecond and
the combustion process is carried out in supersonic speed.
 The fresh air supply to the diffuser builds up a pressure at the
diffuser so that these burned gases can not expand towards
the diffuser.
 Instead, the gases are made to expand in combustor towards
tail hence providing the required thrust.

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 Scramjet Combustion
 Due to supersonic flow of air inside the combustion chamber,
the residence time of the flow to ignite and mixing with fuel
is very less to operate conventional air fuel mixing
techniques.
 There exists various modes and transitions inside the
combustion chamber that are numerically identified by many
scientists in recent years.

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 Combustion modes
Takahashi et al.[1] distinguished four different combustion
modes, namely
 non-ignition,
 weak combustion,
 strong combustion and
 thermal choking.

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 Combustion modes
Ruifeng Cao et al.[2] described that by varying the total
amount of fuel added or adjusting the fuel injection scheme,
three typical combustion modes could be attained:
 scramjet-mode,
 transitional mode and
 ramjet-mode.

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 Fuel used in combustion chamber
 Earlier hydrocarbon based fuel were used in conventional
ramjet engine.[3]
 Now Hydrogen is mainly used as a fuel in Scramjet
combustion chamber instead of other hydrocarbon fuel for its
better ignitability, low ignition delay, and higher flame
stability.[4]
 Kerosene is used in most experiments as injection which can
provide speed in Mach 5-8 [5]

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 Fuel Injection
 Single strut
 Double Strut
 Triple Strut
 Gautam Choubey et al.[6] showed that combustion efficiency
is found to be highest (approx. 93%) in case of three strut
fuel injection system as compared to single strut injection.

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 Single & multi strut fuel injection

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 Cavity Flame holding
 It is a technique to hold the supersonic flame for longer time
without using longer combustion duct.
 It stabilizes the supersonic flame and hence combustion
process.
 The residence time is increased with the presence of cavity
flame holder along with mixing of fuel.
 It helps in recirculation of air [7],[8]

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 Cavity Flame holding

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 Advantages of Scramjet engine

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 Disadvantages

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 Applications

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 Conclusion

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 Reference
 [1] Shuhei Takahashi, Goro Yamano, Kazunori Wakai, Mitsuhiro Tsue
and Michikata Kono, “Self-ignition and transition to flame-holding in a
rectangular scramjet combustor with a backward step”, Proceedings of
the Combustion Institute, Volume 28, 2000/pp. 705–712
 [2] Ruifeng Cao, Juntao Chang, Wen Bao, Manli Guo, Jiang Qin, Daren
Yu, Zhongqi Wang, “Analysis of combustion mode and operating route
for hydrogen fueled scramjet engine”, International journal for
hydrogen energy 38 (2013) 5928-5935
 [3] Curran, E.T., “Scramjet Engines: The First Forty Years”, Journal of
Propulsion and Power, Vol. 17, No. 6, Nov-Dec 2001, pp. 1138-1148
 [4] Ahsan R Choudhuri, S.R Gollahalli,” Combustion characteristics of
hydrogen–hydrocarbon hybrid fuels”, International Journal of
Hydrogen Energy, Volume 25, Issue 5, 1 May 2000, Pages 451-462

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 Reference
 [5] Adela Ben-Yakar and Ronald K. Hanson, “Cavity Flame-
Holders for Ignition and Flame Stabilization in Scramjets: An
Overview”, Journal of propulsion and power Vol. 17, No. 4,
July–August 2001
 [6] Gautam Choubey, K. M. Pandey, Ambarish Maji, and Tuhin
Deshamukhya, “A brief review on the recent advances in
scramjet engine”, AIP Conference Proceedings · July 2017
 [7] Dingwu Zhanga, Qiang Wang, “Numerical Simulation of
Supersonic Combustor with Innovative Cavity”, Procedia
Engineering 31 (2012) 708-712
 [8] Obula Reddy Kummitha, Krishna Murari Pandey, Rajat Gupta, “CFD
analysis of a scramjet combustor with cavity based flame holders”, Acta
Astronautica 144 (2018) 244–253

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 THANK YOU

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