Visualization of Pulsed Aerated Liquid 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 these paper experimental results on the mixing of pure liquid jet, aerated liquid jet and pulsed aerated liquid jet in supersonic cross flow. Transverse aerated liquid jet injection will offer relatively rapid near-field mixing, good fuel penetration and better atomization of liquid fuel. Fully modulated or pulsed fuel jet injection will introduce additional supplementary turbulent mixing. High speed imaging system is used in this study for the visualization of the injection of liquid jet in high speed cross flow. The results presented in this paper show the effect of jet/cross flow momentum ratio, the gas/liquid mass ratio and pulsing frequency on the penetration of aerated liquid jet in supersonic cross-flow. The data generated in this study will be used for the development of active control strategies to optimize the liquid fuel jet penetration and supersonic fuel/air mixing.