Thermodynamic Characteristic Study of a High-temperature Flow-rate Control Valve for Fuel Supply of Scramjet Engines

Thermodynamic characteristics are of great importance for the performance of a high-temperature flow-rate control valve,as high-temperature environment may bring problems,such as blocking of spool and increasing of leakage,to the valve.In this paper,a high-temperature flow-rate control valve,pilot-controlled by a pneumatic servo system is developed to control the fuel supply for scramjet engines.After introducing the construction and working principle,the thermodynamic mathematical models of the valve are built based on the heat transfer methods inside the valve.By using different boundary conditions,different methods of simulations are carried out and compared.The steady-state and transient temperature field distribution inside the valve body are predicted and temperatures at five interested points are measured.By comparing the simulation and experimental results,a reasonable 3D finite element analysis method is suggested to predict the thermodynamic characteristics of the high-temperature flow-rate control valve.

Simplified procedure for controlling pressure distribution of a scramjet combustor

Scramjet engines are used at extreme temperatures and velocity. New control problems involving distributed parameter control have been found concerning investigations of the control of scramjet engines whose physical states are spatially interacted. Succeeding the existing theoretical studies on the distributed parameter control for scramjet engines, this paper puts forward a simplified distributed parameter control approach for scramjet engines aimed at engineering application. The simplified control procedure uses the classical proportional-integral（PI） compensation to control the target pressure distribution of scramjet engines, which is effective and applicable for practical implements. Simulation results show the validation of the simplified distributed parameter control procedure.

The Two-Dimensional Supersonic Flow and Mixing with a Perpendicular Injection in a Scramjet Combustor

A numerical investigation has been performed on supersonic mixing of hydrogen with air in a Scramjet (Supersonic Combustion Ramjet) combustor and its flame holding capability by solving Two-Dimensional full Navier-Stokes equations. The main flow is air entering through a finite width of inlet and gaseous hydrogen is injected perpendicularly from the side wall. An explicit Harten-Yee Non-MUSCL Modified-flux-type TVD scheme has been used to solve the system of equations, and a zero-equation algebraic turbulence model to calculate the eddy viscosity coefficient. In this study the enhancement of mixing and good flame holding capability of a supersonic combustor have been investigated by varying the distance of injector position from left boundary keeping constant the backward-facing step height and other calculation parameters. The results show that the configuration for small distance of injector position has high mixing efficiency but the upstream recirculation can not evolved properly which is an important factor for flame holding capability. On the other hand, the configuration for very long distance has lower mixing efficiency due to lower gradient of hydrogen mass concentration on the top of injector caused by the expansion of side jet in both upstream and downstream of injector. For moderate distance of injector position, large and elongated upstream recirculation can evolve which might be activated as a good flame holder.

Design method of supercritical hydrocarbon fuel injection for a scramjet

Both the fuel transfer control scheme and the knowledge of fuel temperature and pressure values before injection are important to a scramjet engine.A measurement method of the fluid temperature suitable for small channel is presented,and a fluid transfer control scheme of the area of injecting holes is designed using the balance equations of fluid mass,energy and entropy.A convective heat transfer experiment is conducted to evaluate the temperature measurement and the fluid transfer control design method of the heat absorbing supercritical hydrocarbon fuel.The results show that during the heating process the injecting pressure meets the requirement,and the fluid transfer control system works well.Such results suggest that the design method in the present work would be useful in the design of regenerative cooling for scramjet engines.

Drag force investigation of cavities with different geometric configurations in supersonic flow

In order to prolong the residence time of the flow retaining in the supersonic flow, wall cavity has been widely applied in the scramjet combustor, and this affects the aerodynamic surface and imposes additional drag force on the hypersonic propulsion system. The two-dimensional coupled implicit Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations and the RNG k?ε turbulent model were employed to investigate the flow fields of cavities with different geometric configurations, namely the classical rectangular, triangular and semi-circular, and the cavities with the fixed depth and length-to-depth ratio. At the same time, the drag force performances of the cavities were estimated and compared. The obtained results show that the numerical results are in very good agreement with the experimental data, and the different scales of grid make only a slight difference from the numerical results. The intensity of the trailing shock wave is much stronger than that of the leading one, and the area around the trailing edge of the cavities plays an important role in the chemical reaction in the scramjet combustor. With the fixed depth and length-to-depth ratio, the triangular cavity can strengthen the turbulent combustion in the scramjet combustor further, but impose the most additional drag force on the scramjet engine. The classical rectangular one can impose the least additional drag force on the engine, but the function of strengthening the combustion is the weakest. The influence of the semi-circular one is the moderate, but the machining process is more complex than the other two configurations.

Influence of fuel injection position and equivalent mixture ratio on chemical non-equilibrium effects of single expansion ramp nozzle

Chemical non-equilibrium flow was investigated for the scramjet single expansion ramp nozzle(SERN)with a strut-based liquid-kerosene-fueled combustor.Two-dimensional Reynolds-averaged NavierStokes(RANS)equations were solved with the species conservation equation for continuous phase and the renormalization group(RNG)k-εturbulence model.Lagrangian discrete-phase model was analyzed for liquidkerosene droplets behavior in the supersonic stream.Combustion was simulated by kerosene surrogate fuel's10-species and 13-step reduced reaction kinetics mechanism with use of Arrhenius's laminar finite rate model.Parametric studies were carried out to estimate the influence of different fuel injection positions and equivalent mixture ratios on the SERN chemical non-equilibrium effects.Numerical calculation results show that the strutbased combustor enables convenient modeling of various SERN entry conditions,which is similar with many preceding investigations,by changing the injector strut position and controlling the mass flow rate of each injector.Chemical non-equilibrium effects function in the whole SERN,especially in the initial flow expansion region,leads to obviously higher SERN performance of the non-equilibrium flow than that of the frozen flow.Furthermore,the distributed fuel injection pattern plays a significant role in enhancing the combustion efficiency in combustor,but weakening the chemical non-equilibrium effects funciton in SERN.Additionally,while the equivalent mixture ratio increases,the SERN thrust coefficient and lift coefficient rise gradually,and the increment of non-equilibrium flow in relation to frozen flow becomes higher as well.To be specific,the equivalent mixture ratio is 0.6,the maximum increment of thrust coefficient and lift coefficient are 11.6% and 25% respectively.