Numerical analysis of supersonic combustion ramjet with upstream fuel injection

This paper describes possible fuel injection scheme for airbreathing engines that use hydrocarbon fuels. The basic idea is to inject fuel at the spike tip of the supersonic inlet to achieve mixing and combustion efficiency with a limited length combustion chamber. A numerical code, able to solve the full Navier-Stokes equations in turbulent and reacting flows, is employed to obtain numerical simulations of the thermo-fluidynamic fields at different scramjet flight conditions, at Mach numbers of M=6.5 and 8. The feasibility of the idea of the upstream injection is checked for a simple axisymmetric configuration and relatively small size. The results are discussed in connection with the potential benefits deriving from the use of new ultra high temperature ceramics (UHTC).