Luminescent Measurement Systems for the Investigation of a Scramjet Inlet-Isolator

Sensors

Azam Che Idris¹  Mohd Rashdan Saad¹  Hossein Zare-Behtash² 

[1] Faculty of Engineering, National Defence University of Malaysia, Kem Sungai Besi, Kuala Lumpur 57000, Malaysia; E-Mail:;School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, James Watt South Building, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland; E-Mails:

关键词: scramjet inlet;    hypersonic;    pressure-sensitive paint (PSP);    stream-thrust;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s140406606

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Scramjets have become a main focus of study for many researchers, due to their application as propulsive devices in hypersonic flight. This entails a detailed understanding of the fluid mechanics involved to be able to design and operate these engines with maximum efficiency even at their off-design conditions. It is the objective of the present cold-flow investigation to study and analyse experimentally the mechanics of the fluid structures encountered within a generic scramjet inlet at M = 5. Traditionally, researchers have to rely on stream-thrust analysis, which requires the complex setup of a mass flow meter, a force balance and a heat transducer in order to measure inlet-isolator performance. Alternatively, the pitot rake could be positioned at inlet-isolator exit plane, but this method is intrusive to the flow, and the number of pitot tubes is limited by the model size constraint. Thus, this urgent need for a better flow diagnostics method is addressed in this paper. Pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) has been applied to investigate the flow characteristics on the compression ramp, isolator surface and isolator sidewall. Numerous shock-shock interactions, corner and shoulder separation regions, as well as shock trains were captured by the luminescent system. The performance of the scramjet inlet-isolator has been shown to improve when operated in a modest angle of attack.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.