Numerical Investigation of the Shock Train in a Scramjet with the Effects of Back-Pressure and Divergent Angles

Abstract

Numerical simulations are carried out to study the effect of divergence angle and adverse pressure gradient on the movement of shock wave train in a scramjet isolator. The commercial software tool ANSYS Fluent 16 was used to simplify two dimensional Reynolds averaged Navier Stokes equation with compressible fluid flow by considering the density-based solver with standard K-ε turbulence model. The species transport model with single step volumetric reaction mechanism is employed. Initially, the simulated results are validated with experimental results available in open literature. The obtained results show that the variation of the divergence angle and back pressure on the scramjet isolator has greater significance on the flow field. Also, with an increase in the back pressure, due to the intense turbulent combustion, the shock wave train developed should expand along the length and also moves towards the leading edge of the isolator leading to rapid rise in the pressure so that the pressure at the entrance of the isolator can match the enhanced back pressures.