Flow Establishment of Precombustion Shock Trains in a Shock Tunnel

Abstract

This work is a fundamental investigation of the behavior of precombustion shock trains in the T4 Stalker Tube at the upper end of the dual-mode combustion regime. Experiments were conducted at a condition that represents flight at Mach 8 at an altitude of 26 km. The test model was a simple axisymmetric duct comprising a short diffuser, an isolator (), and a constant-area combustor (). Gaseous hydrogen was used as the fuel and was injected via six portholes equispaced around the perimeter of the duct. Time histories of the surface pressure in the model showed a pressure rise from stable supersonic combustion up to a fuel equivalence ratio of 0.9. At higher fuel levels, a precombustion shock train formed upstream of the point of fuel injection. Between equivalence ratios of 0.9 and 1.1, the shock train established itself and remained stable over a significant portion of the approximately 3 ms test window. Above an equivalence ratio of 1.1, the pressure time histories continued to rise throughout the test window and a stable flow was not established. These results indicate that short-duration facilities like the T4 Stalker Tube can be used for dual-mode combustion studies at fuel levels below a limit that will depend on the particular flow condition and model geometry.