Review of cavity-stabilized combustion for scramjet applications

Abstract

Cavities are widely used as flameholders in supersonic combustors due to their outstanding potential to stabilize combustion without excessive total pressure loss. A review of cavity-stabilized combustion for scramjet applications is provided in this article. The topics cover the fundamental problems and recent advances regarding cavity-organized combustion in high-speed flows, including combustion stabilization modes and mechanisms, flame stability analyses and correlations, combustion oscillations, and other related issues. Remarkable questions such as cavity-coupled fuel injection, flow and combustion coupling, optimal cavity geometry and scale, auto-ignition and flame propagation interactions, and unsteady effects are discussed. Then, an attempt is made to provide some guidelines for the future research of cavity flameholders.

Survey on the mode transition technique in combined cycle propulsion systems

“…The topological invariant rules of a class of nonlinear phenomena as catastrophe, hysteresis and bifurcation have been proposed by Yu et al [60] to model the stability boundaries of ram-scram transition in scramjet engines, and this phenomena is common in the start/unstart process of the supersonic inlet [10,11]. The hysteresis phenomenon [40] of ram-scram transition in a ramjet engine has been analyzed by a mechanical model [12], and this model has been developed in line with the principles of bistability in dynamical system theories under the assumption of inviscid flow.…”

“…Micka and Driscoll [45] have observed two distinct combustion stabilization modes for ramjet operation, namely the jet-wake stabilized and the cavity stabilized, and only the cavity stabilized combustion mode exists for scramjet operation. Wang et al [59] have given a detailed review on the cavity-stabilized combustion for scramjet applications, and some questions such as cavity-coupled fuel injection, flow and combustion coupling, optimal cavity geometry and scale, auto-ignition and flame propagation interactions, and unsteady effects have been discussed comprehensively.…”

Numerical simulation on ignition transients of hydrogen flame in a supersonic combustor with dual-cavity

“…Ben-yakar et al [2] and Wang et al [3] gave overviews of cavity flameholders for the progress in experimental and numerical studies. These works are mainly concerning about the model scramjet combustor with a single wall cavity.…”

Three Dimensional Flow Analysis of a Cavity-Based Scramjet Combustor

“…This is due to the long ignition delay. 1 To overcome these problems different methods are introduced and analyzed. One of the methods employed is using ramps, struts and etc.…”