Rapid supersonic performance estimation for a novel RBCC engine inlet

A method to estimate the supersonic performance of an inlet designed for a rocket based combined cycle engine is developed. This method is to be used for exchange inlet geometry optimisation and as such is able to quickly predict properties that can be used in the design process such as total pressure loss and mass flow rate. The method is developed using solutions for shocks around sharp cones and estimations of shocks around 2D blunt wedges. The total pressure drop across the estimated shocks as well as the mass flow rate through the exchange inlet are calculated. The estimations for a selected range of free-stream Mach numbers between 1.1 and 7 are compared against numerical finite volume simulations. The predicted mass flow rate does not differ from the numerical simulations by more than 5% for the tested conditions, while the total pressure is predicted to within 10% of finite volume simulations for most of the conditions considered.