Prediction of swirling cold flow in a solid-fuel ramjet engine with a modified rotation/curvature correction SST turbulence model

Abstract

In this paper, numerical investigation of swirling non-reacting turbulent flows in a research solid-fuel ramjet has been conducted. An in-house code has been developed in order to solve axisymmetric Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations of the turbulent swirling compressible flowfield. A new and simple rotation–curvature correction factor of curvature correction Menter’s shear stress transport turbulence model (SST-CC) is presented. The modified model (SST-CCM) is verified using two-dimensional flow in a U-turn channel and then used to study the effect of rotation–curvature correction on swirling flow in the solid-fuel ramjet. The predicted results show that the modified model (SST-CCM) can estimate the rotation–curvature effects as efficiently as the original SST-CC and requires lower computational effort. For the solid-fuel ramjet, the predicted results showed satisfactory agreement with the experimental data. This analysis also showed the importance of the swirling flow with simultaneous influence in the combustor and aft mixing chamber.