Application of hydrogen mechanisms in combustion simulation of DLR scramjet combustor and their effect on combustion performance

Abstract

In view of the promising application of hydrogen in scramjet combustor and the rapid development of hydrogen kinetic mechanisms, present work applies representative mechanisms with good kinetic performance to the combustion simulation of DLR scramjet combustor with a customized solver based on OpenFOAM platform. Different Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) turbulence models including standard k-ε, SST k-ω and their corresponding modified versions for turbulent round jets, are utilized to simulate the non-reactive and reactive flow fields. Compared with the detailed experimental measurements of schlieren image, streamwise velocity, pressure etc., the modified k-ω SST turbulence model shows good performance and improves the simulation results near hydrogen jet. In combination with partially stirred reactor (PaSR) combustion model, three representative detailed hydrogen mechanisms (marked with Ó Conaire-2004, Varga-2015 and Konnov-2019) are adopted to evaluate their effect on combustion performance under scramjet combustion condition. And their effects on the combustion performance are quantified based on combustion efficiency, net thrust, total pressure loss, etc. All of them can well characterize the thermal combustion characteristics of hydrogen in the combustor. Among them, Ó Conaire-2004 slightly overestimates flame temperature, combustion efficiency and net thrust, and underestimates total pressure loss. Whereas Varga-2015 and Konnov-2019 provide nearly identical results on these performance parameters and give temperature profiles coinciding well with experimental data. Although the newly added excited states in Varga-2015 and Konnov-2019 deepen the understanding of hydrogen combustion processes and can served for optical combustion diagnostics, their effects on thermal combustion characteristics are negligible under present combustion condition, judging from their low content and the analysis on the performance parameters. Present work is conducive to the selection of hydrogen mechanisms for the combustion simulation of hydrogen-fueled scramjet combustor, and facilitates to obtain reliable simulation results for scramjet with turbulent round jets by employing the modified SST k-ω turbulence model.