Abstract
In this paper, the effect of sudden expansion ratio of solid fuel ramjet (SFRJ) combustor is numerically investigated with swirl flow. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code is written in FORTRAN to simulate the combustion and flow patterns in the combustion chamber. The connected-pipe facility is used to perform the experiment with swirl, and high-density Polyethylene (HDPE) is used as the solid fuel. The investigation is performed with different sudden expansion ratios, in which the port and inlet diameters are independently varied. The results indicated that the self-sustained combustion of the SFRJ occurs around the reattachment point at first, and then the heat released in reattachment point is used to achieve the self-sustained combustion in the redevelopment zone. The average regression rate is proportional to the sudden expansion ratio for the cases with a fixed port diameter, which is mainly dominated by the enhancement of heat transfer in backward-facing step. However, the average regression rate is inversely proportional to the sudden expansion ratio for the cases with fixed inlet diameter, which is influenced by the heat transfer mechanism of developed turbulent flow in the redevelopment zone.
Highlights
Nowadays, solid fuel ramjet (SFRJ) has been widely used and researched in the military and aerospace fields, due to the advantages of simple structure, high reliability, and easy long-term storage.how to improve combustion performance is a hotspot of current researches
As can be seen from previous researches, the combustion performance of SFRJ could be highly determined by the regression rate, and it is influenced by the geometry of SFRJ combustor
In the swirl flow condition, the combustion characteristics of SFRJ is mainly determined by the flow field characteristics
Summary
Solid fuel ramjet (SFRJ) has been widely used and researched in the military and aerospace fields, due to the advantages of simple structure, high reliability, and easy long-term storage.how to improve combustion performance is a hotspot of current researches. As can be seen from previous researches, the combustion performance of SFRJ could be highly determined by the regression rate, and it is influenced by the geometry of SFRJ combustor. The regression rate and flow field characteristics of SFRJ and scramjets has been extensively investigated with experimental and theoretical studies. An experimental investigation on SFRJ is performed by Schulte [1], with different altitudes, flight speeds, and mass fluxes of in-coming air, to determine the fuel regression behavior. Gany et al [2] investigated the combustion that is affected by the geometry of Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) fueled SFRJ. The research founded that the local regression rate could be sensitive to the local convective heat flux and it was significantly affected by the port diameter
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