Penetration of Aerated Liquid Fuel Jet in Supersonic Cross Flow

Abstract

The success of supersonic air-breathing propulsion systems will be largely dependent on efficient injection, mixing, and combustion inside the supersonic combustion chamber. Fuel/air mixing enhancement inside the combustion chamber will depend on the strategies used to control the fuel jet penetration and liquid fuel droplet size, trajectory, and dispersion. We present in this paper experimental results on the penetration and mixing of aerated liquid fuel jet in supersonic cross flow (M=1.5). The aerated liquid jet or the barbotage technique where a small amount of gas is added to the liquid fuel will accelerate the atomization of the liquid jet and offer a good fuel penetration. High speed imaging system is used in this study for the visualization of pure and aerated liquid jet. For the aerated liquid jet the gas/liquid mass ratio was varied between 0 and 9.9 %. The results presented in this paper shows the effect of jet/cross flow momentum ratio, and gas/liquid mass ratio on the structure and penetration of aerated liquid jet (methanol) in high speed cross flow. The data generated in this study are used for the development of active control strategies to optimize the liquid fuel jet penetration and supersonic fuel/air mixing.