Numerical Simulation of MHD Flows in 2-D Scramjet Inlets

Paper number

IAC-08.C4.5.11

Author

Dr. Zheng Xiaomei, China

Year

2008

Abstract

The scramjet inlet is usually designed for a specified flight mach number to satisfy the famous shock-on-lip condition, at off-design mach numbers, performance of the engine will severely decline. MHD control of scramjet inlets is numerically simulated and the possibility of application is investigated. 
Role of the Hall Effect on MHD channel is investigated; results show that in continuous electrode Hall Effect caused serious performance deterioration. Segmented electrode will partly resolve the problem decided on the segmental degree. Considering about the effect of vicious, the MHD controlled inlet performance at off-design conditions is investigated. At flight Mach number higher than the design value, the shocks can be moved back to the cowl lip by placing an MHD generator at one of the compression ramps. Several scenarios were investigated at flight Mach lower than design value. Hypersonic Systems Research Institute of Russia presented an MHD generator mode which has a modest increase in mass capture and compression. Princeton University of America proposed an on-ramp MHD accelerator mode which was validated to be unfeasible as the MHD device consumes high power, reduces total pressure, and decreases mass capture due to Joule heating and thermal expansion of the gas. In this paper, MHD accelerator mode is adopted with the magnetic field has components both parallel and orthogonal to the flow at flight Mach lower than design value. It is shown that at appropriate choose of parameters and proper position of the MHD interaction region the MHD control allows one to effectively increase mass capture and compression, while the total pressure increase is controlled at acceptable range. The calculation also showed that vicious effect is inevitable in hypersonic inlet simulations.
It can be concluded that the application of MHD controlled inlet is quite attractive. The scramjet inlet has strong 3-D characteristic, so more reliable demonstrations need advanced 3-D simulations. Other applications of MHD on hypersonic vehicles are also under investigation.

Abstract document

IAC-08.C4.5.11.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-08.C4.5.11.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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