Performance Prediction of Internal Compression Supersonic Air Intake at Range of Mach Numbers (1.1-1.5)

Abstract

In this research a numerical investigation on a supersonic air intake was done. The aim of this work is to investigate a variable geometry of cross-section area for supersonic air intake at range (1.1-1.5) Mach number, to get a maximum pressure recovery. In this work, the flow starts with a normal shock attached to the intake cowl lip. The flow is assumed compressible, inviscid, two-dimensional flow, unsteady, and axisymmetric. The equations (Continuity, Momentum, and Energy) were solved based on a finite volume method. The governing equations were solved iteratively using time marching technique. This part is analyzed for several Mach numbers, where the flow properties are determined from inlet of air intake to the diffuser exit. Results show that, the implementation of time marching scheme has succeeded in the prediction of the choked flow region, which is important in the study of the performance of convergent-divergent diffuser. Also the results indicated the absolute velocity increases along the convergent part and then start to decrease along divergent part independently on the values of free-stream Mach numbers.