Investigation of shock-enhanced mixing in a scramjet inlet

Abstract

A computational investigation of a scramjet inlet is presented in this project. The aim is to study the shock-enhanced mixing occurring in the inlet of a hypersonic vehicle. Three-dimensional numerical simulations are carried out for a circular jet of helium at Mach 1.7 into a Mach 6 ambient air flow. Several configurations to evaluate the impact of inlet geometrical parameters, fuel injector position and mesh quality are simulated numerically. Mole-fraction contours at different axial positions in the inlet are obtained to characterize the vortex-pair structure that appears in the flow. The mixing efficiency is quantitatively determined using two parameters: the ratio of the thickness of mixed fluid and the Shannon entropy. Both measures show that the flow is more mixed near the outlet of the domain and that an increase in the ramp angle of the inlet results in higher mixing efficiency.