Numerical Simulations of Flow in a 3-D Supersonic Intake at High Mach Numbers

Abstract

Numerical simulations of the compressible, 3-D non reacting flow in the engine inlet section of a concept hypersonic air-breathing vehicle are presented. These simulations have been carried out using FLUENT. For all the results reported, the mesh has been refined to achieve areaaveraged wall y+ about 105. Mass flow rate through the intake and stagnation pressure recovery are used to compare the performance at various angles of attack. The calculations are able to predict the mode of air-intake operation (critical and subcritical) for different angles of attack. Flow distortion at the intake for various angles of attack is also calculated and discussed. The numerical results are validated by simulating the flow through a 2-D mixed compression hypersonic intake model and comparing with the experimental data.

A validation study of OpenFOAM using the supersonic flow in a mixed compression intake

“…Four meshes with 120 000, 180 000, 210 000, and 400 000 cells were generated to establish the grid independence of the results. It was observed that gridindependent results were obtained on the mesh with 210 000 cells as compared to 119 098 obtained using Fluent [7]. The maximum value for the wall y + on this mesh is 25.…”

“…For this evaluation, the inlet configurations investigated experimentally by Schneider and Koschel [6] are considered. The predictions from OpenFOAM are compared with the experimental data reported by Schneider and Koschel [6] and also the numerical data reported by Sivakumar and Babu [7]. However, as a first step, the propagation of shock for a flow over an inclined ramp is studied with Open-FOAM and compared with the results obtained by Oliver et al [8].…”

“…2 Geometry and computational domain for the mixed compression intake [8] (see Table 1 for details) compressed through oblique shocks generated from the corners of the ramp surface and then through reflected shocks in the internal passage. The C-C configuration (Ramp C and Cowl C) was also numerically simulated by Sivakumar and Babu [7] using Fluent. They had used an unstructured mesh with 119 098 cells, having a wall y + <30.…”

Prediction of flow field for a 2-D mixed compression supersonic inlet

“…The introduction of turbojet engine in the aviation industries has reduced the complexity of flying and the economic losses faced by the reciprocating engines [1]. It also increased the time duration of flight, fuel economy, load carrying capability etc.…”

Numerical simulations of the flow through the inlet and isolator of a Mach 4 dual mode scramjet

“…Numerical studies of the flow in the intake of a dual mode scramjet have been reported in the literature in the past (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9) . These numerical studies demonstrated the ability of CFD to capture the qualitative feature of the flow field and also identified issues which prevented quantitative agreement with the available data.…”