Experimental Study on the Combustion Process in a Scramjet Combustor with a Rear-Wall-Expansion Geometry
Publication: Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 31, Issue 5
Abstract
In this study, experiments were conducted in a Mach 2.92 supersonic flow to investigate the combustion process in an ethylene-fueled model scramjet combustor with a rear-wall-expansion geometry. It is concluded that at low equivalence ratios, successful ignitions would become rather hard in the cavity with a low rear wall height. Increasing the equivalence ratio could improve the ignition environment within such cavity geometry. During a stable combustion process, the rear-wall-expansion cavity with a higher rear wall height would always achieve an improvement in combustion performance in the combustor. At a relatively high equivalence ratio, when increasing the cavity rear wall height, the flame stabilization mode would vary from cavity shear layer-stabilized mode to cavity-assisted jet wake–stabilized mode, and finally to the thermal choking state. Besides, reaction zones flashback phenomenon is obviously observed during the flame propagation process at such equivalence ratio. It has been demonstrated that the cavity with a lower rear wall height is more able to prevent thermal choking in the combustor.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 91541101).
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Published In
Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 31 • Issue 5 • September 2018
Copyright
©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 22, 2017
Accepted: Apr 5, 2018
Published online: Jun 30, 2018
Published in print: Sep 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Nov 30, 2018
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