Development of an Experimentally Flexible Facility for Mixing-Combustion Interactions in Supersonic Flow

Abstract

A new experimental facility has been designed, built and calibrated to support research topics involving supersonic mixing and combustion and will be used to investigate: 1) molecular level mixing; 2) mixing-combustion coupling effects for gaseous and liquid fuels; and 3) atomization, droplet break-up, mixing, and combustion of high-energy/high-density slurry fuels in a supersonic airstream. The facility simulates flight enthalpies corresponding to altitudes between 26 and 36 km and flight Mach numbers up to 4.755. The major features of this facility are the geometric flexibility of the test section configuration, of the fuel injection, and of the experimental conditions, enabling the investigation of a broad range of topics. Parallel and transverse injection, independently controlled in four regions, is available. The construction of the test section is modular and the entrance Mach numbers can be varied between 1.6 and 3.6. An experimental program to define the test flow at the entrance of the facility’s test section is presented with emphasis on the test section entrance ture distribution and calibration. Selected research topics currently being investigated are summarized to highlight the usefulness of the present facility.