Fabrication and Thermal Structural Characteristics of Ultra-high Temperature Ceramic Struts in Scramjets

ZrB_2-SiC based ultra-high temperature ceramic(UHTC) struts were firstly proposed and fabricated with the potential application in the combustor of scramjets for fuel injection and flame-holding for their machinability and excellent oxidation/ablation resistance in the extreme harsh environment. The struts were machined with electrospark wire-electrode cutting techniques to form UHTC into the desired shape, and with laser drilling to drill tiny holes providing the channels for fuel injection. The integrated thermal-structural characteristic of the struts was evaluated in high-temperature combustion environment by the propane-oxygen free jet facility, subject to the heat flux of 1.5 MW/m^2 lasting for 300 seconds, and the struts maintained integrity during and after the first experiment. The experiments were repeated for verifying the reusability of the struts. Fracture occurred during the second repeated experiment with the crack propagating through the hole. Finite element analysis(FEA) was carried out to study the thermal stress distribution in the UHTC strut. The simulation results show a high thermal stress concentration occurs at the hole which is the crack initiation position. The phenomenon is in good agreement with the experimental results. The study shows that the thermal stress concentration is a practical key issue in the applications of the reusable UHTC strut for fuel injection structure in scramjets.

A thin radar-infrared stealth-compatible structure:Design,fabrication,and characterization

A thin radar-infrared stealth-compatible structure with reflectivity below 10 dB in the whole radar X wave band and infrared emissivity less than 0.3 in the infrared region of 8μm–14μm is reported.The designed stealth-compatible structure consists of metallic frequency selective surface(MFSS),resistive frequency selective surface(RFSS),and metal backing from the top down,and it is only 2.1-mm thick.The MFSS is made up of some divided low infrared emissivity metal copper films,and the RFSS consists of a capacitive array of square resistive patches.They are placed close together,working as an admittance sheet because of a mutual influence between them,and the equivalent admittance sheet greatly reduces the thickness of the whole structure.The proposed stealth-compatible structure is verified both by simulations and by experimental results.These results indicate that our proposed stealth-compatible structure has potential applications in stealth fields.

Quantitative measurement of hydroxyl radical(OH) concentration in premixed flat flame by combining laser-induced fluorescence and direct absorption spectroscopy

An accurate and reasonable technique combining direct absorption spectroscopy and laser-induced fluorescence(LIF)methods is developed to quantitatively measure the concentrations of hydroxyl in CH_4/air flat laminar flame. In our approach, particular attention is paid to the linear laser-induced fluorescence and absorption processes, and experimental details as well. Through measuring the temperature, LIF signal distribution and integrated absorption, spatially absolute OH concentrations profiles are successfully resolved. These experimental results are then compared with the numerical simulation. It is proved that the good quality of the results implies that this method is suitable for calibrating the OH-PLIF measurement in a practical combustor.

Quantitative temperature imaging at elevated pressures and in a confined space with CH4/air laminar flames by filtered Rayleigh scattering

Laminar methane/air premixed flames at different pressures in a newly developed high-pressure laminar burner are studied through Cantera simulation and filtered Rayleigh scattering(FRS).Different gas component fractions are obtained through the detailed numerical simulations.And this approach can be used to correct the FRS images of large variations in a Rayleigh cross section in different flame regimes.The temperature distribution above the flat burner is then presented without stray light interference from soot and wall reflection.Results also show that the extent of agreement with the single point measurement by the thermocouple is<6%.Finally,this study concludes that the relative uncertainty of the presented filtered Rayleigh scattering diagnostics is estimated to be below 10%in single-shot imaging.

Effect of actuating voltage and discharge gap on plasma assisted detonation initiation process

The influence of actuating voltage and discharge gap on plasma assisted detonation initiation by alternating current dielectric barrier discharge was studied in detail.A loose coupling method was used to simulate the detonation initiation process of a hydrogen–oxygen mixture in a detonation tube under different actuating voltage amplitudes and discharge gap sizes.Both the discharge products and the detonation forming process assisted by the plasma were analyzed.It was found that the patterns of the temporal and spatial distributions of discharge products in one cycle keep unchanged as changing the two discharge operating parameters.However,the adoption of a higher actuating voltage leads to a higher active species concentration within the discharge zone,and atom H is the most sensitive to the variations of the actuating voltage amplitude among the given species.Adopting a larger discharge gap results in a lower concentration of the active species,and all species have the same sensitivity to the variations of the gap.With respect to the reaction flow of the detonation tube,the corresponding deflagration to detonation transition(DDT) time and distance become slightly longer when a higher actuating voltage is chosen.The acceleration effect of plasma is more prominent with a smaller discharge gap,and the benefit builds gradually throughout the DDT process.Generally,these two control parameters have little effect on the amplitude of the flow field parameters,and they do not alter the combustion degree within the reaction zone.

Effects of temperature and pressure on OH laser-induced fluorescence exciting A-X (1,0) transition at high pressures

The effects of temperature and pressure on laser-induced fluorescence(LIF)of OH are numerically studied under the excitation of A-X(1,0)transition at high pressures.A detailed theoretical analysis is carried out to reveal the physical processes of LIF.It is shown that high pressure LIF measurements get greatly complicated by the variations of pressure-and temperature-dependent parameters,such as Boltzmann fraction,absorption lineshape broadening,central-frequency shifting,and collisional quenching.Operations at high pressures require a careful choice of an excitation line,and the Q1(8)line in the A-X(1,0)band of OH is selected due to its minimum temperature dependence through the calculation of Boltzmann fraction.The absorption spectra of OH become much broader as pressure increases,leading to a smaller overlap integral and thus smaller excitation efficiency.The central-frequency shifting cannot be omitted at high pressures,and should be taken into account when setting the excitation frequency.The fluorescence yield is estimated based on the LASKIN calculation.Finally,OH-LIF measurements were conducted on flat stoichiometric CH4/air flames at high pressures.And both the numerical and experimental results illustrate that the pressure dependence of fluorescence yield is dominated,and the fluorescence yield is approximately inversely proportional to pressure.These results illustrate the physical processes of OH-LIF and provide useful guidelines for high-pressure application of OH-LIF.

Effect of kerosene injection states on mixing and combustion characteristics in a cavity-based supersonic combustor

It has been found that the static pressure distribution along the axial direction of liquid kerosene is lower than that of the gaseous kerosene under the same flow condition and overall equivalent ratio from previous studies.To further investigate this phenomenon,a compressible two-phase parallel simulation method is utilized to analyze the mixing and combustion characteristics of gaseous and liquid kerosene jets in a cavity-based supersonic combustor.The numerical results are consistent with the experiments and demonstrate that gaseous injection leads to a cavity shear layer that dives deeper into the cavity,forming two recirculation zones in the front and rear of the cavity.In contrast,the cavity shear layer is closer to the mainstream during liquid injection,and only a large recirculation zone is formed in the rear of the cavity.As a result of the cavity shear layer and the recirculating flow,the fuel vapor of gaseous injection accumulates in the front of the cavity,while for the liquid injection,the fuel vapor disperses in the cavity,cavity shear layer,and the region above,and the rear of the cavity has a higher fuel vapor concentration than the front.This unique fuel distribution causes the combustion area to be concentrated in the cavity during the gaseous injection but dispersed inside and downstream of the cavity during the liquid injection.As a result,forming a thermal throat under the same conditions is more challenging during liquid injection,and the generated static pressure distribution is lower than that during the gaseous injection.

Effect of injection scheme on asymmetric phenomenon in rectangular and circular scramjets

The asymmetric separation has a crucial effect on the performance of the scramjet.In this study,the asymmetric separation and combustion in both rectangular and circular scramjets are investigated numerically,and the effect of injection scheme is analyzed.The characteristics of the flow field are analyzed based on sufficient code verification.In the rectangular scramjet,the separation tends to occur in the corner due to the corner boundary-layer effect.The separation is asym-metric and only two corners have serious separation.The fuel penetration depth in the separation zone increases and the combustion is intensified.When the injection scheme is uniform,both the combustion and separation become weak.In the circular scramjet,the separation and combustion are basically axisymmetric in the scramjet with one-row injection scheme.The asymmetric combustion becomes obvious in cases with multi-row injection scheme.When the injection orifices distribute intensively on the top and bottom sides,the strongest and weakest separations occur near these two sides respectively.When the distribution of orifices becomes uniform,the direction of separation cannot be predicted.For multi-row cases,the nonuniform injection scheme could result in violent combustion and asymmetric flow structures compared with the uniform injection scheme.

MCGA-assisted ignition process and flame propagation of a scramjet at Mach 2.0

The ignition process and flame propagation with ethylene fuel in cavity-stabilized scramjet by a Multi-Channel Gliding Arc(MCGA)at Mach 2.0 were investigated.Effects of equivalence ratios on the MCGA-assisted ignition process and flame propagation of the scramjet were recorded by two high-speed cameras from different view angles.The discharge characteristics of MCGA are also collected synchronously with the high-speed cameras.The distributions of temperature,velocity,and equivalence ratios in non-reactive flows of the cavity were simulated by Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes(RANS)model.The results show that MCGA can achieve reliable ignition with the Global Equivalence Ratios(GER)between 0.06 and 0.17.The ignition process is composed of flame kernel generation,flame development,and stable combustion.The time from flame kernel generation to the establishment of global flame decreases as GER decreases from 0.17 to 0.08.In the streamwise direction,the flame first develops to the Cavity Leading Edge(CLE)because of the influence of the cavity recirculation zone and then uplifts into the cavity shear layer,and finally develops to the Cavity Trailing Edge(CTE).In the spanwise direction,the flame width is less than 50%of the width of the cavity before developing to CLE and begins to develop towards the two sides of the combustor after reaching CLE,which is affected by the angular recirculation zone on both sides of CLE.The ignition processes by MCGA in the scramjet combustor are significantly affected by local distributions of equivalence ratios and velocity in the cavity.

Mixing and combustion characteristics in a scramjet combustor with different distances between cavity and backward-facing step

The mixing and combustion characteristics in a cavity flameholding combustor under inlet Mach number 2.92 are numerically investigated with ethylene injection.Dimensionless distance is defined as the ratio of the actual distance to the height of the combustor entrance.The cavity shear-layer mode,the lifted cavity shear-layer mode,and jet wake mode with upstream separation are observed respectively with dimensionless distance equals to 1.5,4.5,and 7.5.In both non-reacting and reacting flow fields,the numerical results are essentially in agreement with the schlieren photography,flame chemiluminescence images,and wall pressure,which verify the reliability of the numerical method.The results of non-reacting flow fields show that the BackwardFacing Step(BFS)can promote the flow separation downstream at a fixed distance.The more forward the separation position is,the larger the separation zone is in the non-reacting flow field.Furthermore,the larger the separation zone is,the higher the intensity of combustion in the reacting flow field is.A reasonable distance can reduce the total pressure loss generated by the shock waves in the combustor.The flame presents remarkable three-dimensional characteristics in the reacting flow fields.When dimensionless distance equals to 4.5,there are flames near the side wall above the cavity and it is difficult for the flame stabilization in the center of the combustor,while the combustion intensity in the center of the combustor is higher than that near the side wall when dimensionless distance equals to 7.5.In the cavity flameholding combustors with a backward-facing step,the higher combustion intensity may bring much total pressure loss to the combustor.Thus,it is a good choice to achieve better thrust performance when dimensionless distance equals to 4.5 compared to the other two combustors.

Numerical investigation on properties of attack angle for an opposing jet thermal protection system

The three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equation and the k-ε viscous model are used to simulate the attack angle characteristics of a hemisphere nose-tip with an opposing jet thermal protection system in supersonic flow conditions.The numerical method is validated by the relevant experiment.The flow field parameters,aerodynamic forces,and surface heat flux distributions for attack angles of 0°,2°,5°,7°,and 10° are obtained.The detailed numerical results show that the cruise attack angle has a great influence on the flow field parameters,aerodynamic force,and surface heat flux distribution of the supersonic vehicle nose-tip with an opposing jet thermal protection system.When the attack angle reaches 10°,the heat flux on the windward generatrix is close to the maximal heat flux on the wall surface of the nose-tip without thermal protection system,thus the thermal protection has failed.

Experimental investigations of detonation initiation by hot jets in supersonic premixed flows

A new method to initiate and sustain the detonation in supersonic flow is investigated.The reaction activity of coming flow may influence the result of detonation initiation.When a hot jet initiates a detonation wave successfully, there may exist two types of detonations.If the detonation velocity is greater than the velocity of coming flow,there will be a normal detonation here.Because of the influence of boundary layer separation,the upstream detonation velocity is much greater than the Chapman-Jouguet(CJ) detonation velocity.On the other hand,if the detonation velocity is less than the velocity of coming flow,an oblique detonation wave(ODW) will form.The ODW needs a continuous hot jet to sustain itself.If the jet pressure is lower than a certain value,the ODW will decouple.In contrast,the normal detonation wave can sustain itself without the hot jet.

An efficient unstructured WENO method for supersonic reactive flows

An efficient high-order numerical method for supersonic reactive flows is proposed in this article.The reactive source term and convection term are solved separately by splitting scheme.In the reaction step,an adaptive time-step method is presented,which can improve the efficiency greatly.In the convection step,a third-order accurate weighted essentially non-oscillatory(WENO)method is adopted to reconstruct the solution in the unstructured grids.Numerical results show that our new method can capture the correct propagation speed of the detonation wave exactly even in coarse grids,while high order accuracy can be achieved in the smooth region.In addition,the proposed adaptive splitting method can reduce the computational cost greatly compared with the traditional splitting method.

Design of a continuously variable Mach-number nozzle

A design method was developed to specify the profile of the continuously variable Mach-number nozzle for the supersonic wind tunnel. The controllable contour design technique was applied to obtaining the original nozzle profile, while other Machnumbers were derived from the transformation of the original profile. A design scheme, covering a Mach-number range of3.0<Ma<4.0, was shown to illustrate the present design technique. To fully validate the present design method, computational fluid dynamics(CFD) analyses were carried out to study the flow quality in the test area of the nozzle. The computed results indicate that exit uniform flow is obtained with 1.19% of the maximal Mach-number deviation at the nozzle exit. The present design method achieves the continuously variable Mach-number flow during a wind tunnel running.

Numerical analysis of quantitative measurement of hydroxyl radical concentration using laser-induced fluorescence in flame

The aim of the present work is to quantitatively measure the hydroxyl radical concentration by using LIF(laserinduced fluorescence) in flame.The detailed physical models of spectral absorption lineshape broadening,collisional transition and quenching at elevated pressure are built.The fine energy level structure of the OH molecule is illustrated to understand the process with laser-induced fluorescence emission and others in the case without radiation,which include collisional quenching,rotational energy transfer(RET),and vibrational energy transfer(VET).Based on these,some numerical results are achieved by simulations in order to evaluate the fluorescence yield at elevated pressure.These results are useful for understanding the real physical processes in OH-LIF technique and finding a way to calibrate the signal for quantitative measurement of OH concentration in a practical combustor.

A novel contour design technique of super/hypersonic nozzle diverging section with sharing throat

A straightforward technique has been developed to quickly determine the wall contour of super/hypersonic nozzles working at multiply Mach number which share a common throat section.Mach number distribution along the centerline of the nozzle is specified in advance and divided into two sections,both of which are described by the b-spline function.The first section is shared by different exit Mach number nozzles.The nozzle contour is determined by the method of characteristics plus boundary layer correction.An example of this design method is employed to illustrate the technique with a computational fluid dynamics calculation.The simulation results indicate that desired Mach numbers are obtained at the nozzle exit,and the good flow quality is attained for different nozzles within δMa/Ma<±0.56% in the flow core region.This technique improves the design precision of the converging-diverging nozzle,cancels waves completely,and achieves nozzles with multiple Mach number exiting which share a common throat section.

Critical deflagration waves leading to detonation onset under different boundary conditions

High-speed turbulent critical deflagration waves before detonation onset in H2–air mixture propagated into a square cross section channel,which was assembled of optional rigid rough,rigid smooth,or flexible walls.The corresponding propagation characteristic and the influence of the wall boundaries on the propagation were investigated via high-speed shadowgraph and a high-frequency pressure sampling system.As a comprehensive supplement to the different walls effect investigation,the effect of porous absorbing walls on the detonation propagation was also investigated via smoke foils and the high-frequency pressure sampling system.Results are as follows.In the critical deflagration stage,the leading shock and the closely following turbulent flame front travel at a speed of nearly half the CJ detonation velocity.In the preheated zone,a zonary flame arises from the overlapping part of the boundary layer and the pressure waves,and then merges into the mainstream flame.Among these wall boundary conditions,the rigid rough wall plays a most positive role in the formation of the zonary flame and thus accelerates the transition of the deflagration to detonation(DDT),which is due to the boost of the boundary layer growth and the pressure wave reflection.Even though the flexible wall is not conducive to the pressure wave reflection,it brings out a faster boundary layer growth,which plays a more significant role in the zonary flame formation.Additionally,the porous absorbing wall absorbs the transverse wave and yields detonation decay and velocity deficit.After the absorbing wall,below some low initial pressure conditions,no re-initiation occurs and the deflagration propagates in critical deflagration for a relatively long distance.

Effect of actuating frequency on plasma assisted detonation initiation

Aiming at studying the influence of actuating frequency on plasma assisted detonation initiation by alternating current dielectric barrier discharge, a loosely coupled method is used to simulate the detonation initiation process of a hydrogenoxygen mixture in a detonation tube at different actuating frequencies. Both the discharge products and the detonation forming process which is assisted by the plasma are analyzed. It is found that the patterns of the temporal and spatial distributions of discharge products in one cycle are not changed by the actuating frequency. However, the concentration of every species decreases as the actuating frequency rises, and atom O is the most sensitive to this variation, which is related to the decrease of discharge power. With respect to the reaction flow of the detonation tube, the deflagration-todetonation transition(DDT) time and distance both increase as the actuating frequency rises, but the degree of effect on DDT development during flow field evolution is erratic. Generally, the actuating frequency affects none of the amplitude value of the pressure, temperature, species concentration of the flow field, and the combustion degree within the reaction zone.

Characterization of premixed swirling methane/air diffusion flame through filtered Rayleigh scattering

Characteristics of a premixed, swirl methane/air diffusion flame at atmospheric pressure are measured by filtered Rayleigh scattering(FRS). Three operating conditions are investigated with the equivalence ratios of the methane/air flame covering a range of 0.67–0.83. Under each condition, single-shot and averaged FRS images over a region measured 39.3×65.6 mm^(2) at seven cross sections of the flame are collected to demonstrate the flame behavior. A gradient calculation algorithm is applied to identify reaction zone locations and structures in the instantaneous FRS measurements.Statistical analysis for the mean FRS measurements is performed by means of joint probability density functions. The experimental results indicate that thermochemical state of the swirl flame is strongly influenced by equivalence ratio, leading to varieties of flame structures and temperature distributions. The gradient of the instantaneous FRS images clearly illustrates the characteristics of the reaction zone. The results also demonstrate that FRS can provide detailed insights into the behavior of turbulent flames.

Deflagration-to-Detonation Transition Induced by Hot Jets in a Supersonic Premixed Airstream

Detonation is initiated through a hot jet in a supersonic premixed mixture of H2 and air,which is produced by using a air heater.The results show that initiation fails in the low-equivalence-ratio premixed gas.With the increase of equivalence ratio,the hot jet can induce deflagration to detonation transition(DDT)in the premixed mixture,which an indirect initiation of detonation.Further studies show that the DDT process is due to the combined effect of a local hemispherical explosion shock wave,the bow shock,and the flame produced by the hot jet.