Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Materials Today: Proceedings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matpr

Computational investigation of mixing performance on the effects of

innovative transverse fuel injection system in parallel fuel injection
based scramjet combustor
Kumari Ambe Verma, Krishna Murari Pandey ⇑, Kaushal Kumar Sharma
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Silchar, Assam 788010, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Two dimensional computational model has been chosen to perform the numerical investigation of
Received 7 April 2020 mixing performance by introducing innovative transverse fuel injector in parallel fuel injection based
Received in revised form 20 June 2020 supersonic combustor. The Transverse fuel injector is placed 10 mm ahead of wedge shaped strut. The
Accepted 17 July 2020
wedge shaped strut is used for parallel fuel injection. Hydrogen is selected as a fuel to generate thrust.
Available online xxxx
The mixing between hydrogen and air have been started earlier in parallel with transverse fuel injector,
nonetheless the combustion between fuel and air is started prior to parallel fuel injector. However the
Keywords:
combustion efficiency is observed to be less.
DLR scramjet combustor
Air temperature
Ó 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Combustor performance This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
Fuel injector nc-nd/4.0) Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International
Pressure contour Conference & Exposition on Mechanical, Material and Manufacturing Technology.

1. Introduction performance of the combustor. Numerical investigation has been

Supersonic combustion ramjet engines are more fascinating
aero vehicle because combustion occurs at supersonic speed inside
the combustor. The available millisecond time with restricted
length of combustor are the two major issues while going towards
the peak of the engine performance. As the combustion phenom-
ena is dependent on the behavior of fuel mixing [1–2] among the
incoming free-stream air. Nonetheless the approach [3–5] which
is used to inject the stored fuel in the compressed air also plays a
key role. Researchers are trying to get the optimum fuel injection
location and its strategy to get the higher performance at super-
sonic speed of combustion [6–7]. Huang and Zhang [8] explained
the two different combustion modes i.e., supersonic and subsonic
with the help of numerical simulation. DLR combustor model
was chosen with parallel fuel injection system. Chemical kinetics
reaction zone characteristics in dual mode scramjet combustor is
explained during transition mode by Wubingyi Shen et al. [9]. Ara-
vind and Kumar [10] explained the combustion behavior of hydro-
gen with the help of innovative strut fuel injector. As the impact of
geometry was seen on the behavior of supersonic flow field and
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: kmpandey2001@yahoo.com (K.M. Pandey).
performed by choosing LES modeling to explore the impact of
chemical kinetics mechanism between hydrogen and air by Bing
Liu et al. [11]. As the literature review suggests that many of the
researchers are using only parallel fuel injection system or trans-
verse fuel injection system. The parallel with transverse fuel injec-
tion system at the wall has been not explored to understand the
mixing performance of the combustor.
2. Experimental detail of DLR-Scramjet combustor
The experimental observation has been first conducted in Ger-
man Aerospace Laboratory (Abbreviated as DLR). The combustion
has been done at supersonic speed and the combustor named as
DLR scramjet. Both the reacting and non-reacting experimental
observation have been performed by Waidmann et al. [12]. The
detailed numerical modeling of the DLR scramjet combustor has
been explained by Michael Oevermann [13] in both reacting and
non-reacting cases. The outcome of the numerical investigation
of turbulence flow modeling show the similarity with experimen-
tal data. The geometry of computational chamber is shown in
Fig. 1. The combustor has divided in to two parts i.e., constant
cross-sectional area 40 mm
50 mm with length of 100 mm from

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.07.388
2214-7853/Ó 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the
scientific committee of the International Conference & Exposition on Mechanical, Material and Manufacturing Technology.

Please cite this article as: K. A. Verma, K. M. Pandey and K. K. Sharma, Computational investigation of mixing performance on the effects of innovative
transverse fuel injection system in parallel fuel injection based scramjet combustor, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
matpr.2020.07.388
2 K.A. Verma et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 1. Schematic of DLR scramjet combustor.

the entrance and the other section has started by same cross- tively. All of the equation together has been solve by density
sectional area with 3 degree divergence angle at the upper wall. based solver. In the RANS modelling, two equation SST k-x turbu-
The complete length of the computational combustor is 300 mm. lence model is found suitable for aerospace applications. Implicit
The fuel injection strategy is parallel in nature with the help of second-order upwinding scheme is chosen for the discretization
wedge shaped strut. The location of the fuel injector is 77 mm because of the most stable nature.
away from the entrance. The diameter of fuel injector is 1 mm with Continuity Equation:
15 holes in a row with constant distance among them. In the sub-
sequent section, the validation has been performed through same @q @
þ ðquk Þ ¼ 0 ; k ¼ 1; 2; 3 ð1Þ
computational combustor to meet the desirable results. @t @xk
Momentum Equation:
3. Geometry and grid generation
@q @ @P @ ðsik Þ
Two dimensional DLR scramjet combustor model has been ðqui Þ þ ðqui uk Þ þ ¼ ; i; k ¼ 1; 2; 3 ð2Þ
@t @xk @xi @xk
selected to compute all the observation. The Schematic of combus-
tor shown in Fig. 1. Fluent - Ansys 14.0 [14] software has been cho- Energy Equation:
sen to solve all the governing equation in order to get acceptable
results. The grid generation of the model is done in ICEM CFD. @ @ @
@q
ðqHÞ þ ðquk HÞ ¼  uj sjk þ k ; j; k ¼ 1; 2; 3 ð3Þ
There are three different grid generation (coarse, moderate and @t @xk @xk @xk
fine) created to optimize the grid independence test (Table 1). All
the refinement in the elements has been performed ahead of the
fuel injector and walls. This leads to better selection of mesh ele- 4.2. Combustion modeling
ments. Fig. 2 shows the grid generation of computational model.
Based on the comparison among three types of meshing, fine mesh Combustion modelling is utilised to understand the behaviour
with 200,000 element gives a nearest possible value. So all the of interaction between fuel and air. The species transport mod-
forthcoming work has been carried out selected grid generation. elling has been chosen to explore the flow-field behaviour. The sin-
gle step chemical reaction is found better with less computational
4. Simulation details cost to capture the each species behaviour. To complete the chem-
ical kinetics of hydrogen and air, Finite rate eddy dissipation chem-
The present computational model is solved with the help of istry model has been engaged. Eq. (4) shows the complete chemical
Ansys 14.0 Fluent solver. The details of all the selected model has reaction of fuel and air.
been explained in the subsequent sections. To eliminate the cost
of time, two dimensional model has been opted to investigate 2H2 þ O2 ! 2H2 O ð4Þ
the mixing performance by introducing innovative transverse fuel
injector at the lower wall.

5. Boundary condition
4.1. Numerical modeling
The selected boundary condition is opted from the research
Two dimensional computational combustor model has been
article of Waidmann et al. [12]. The geometry of computational
calculated with the help of RANS modelling. As the Reynolds Aver- combustor shown in Fig. 1 follow the same dimensions. The free
age Navier Stokes Equation (RANS) is useful to capture the turbu-
stream incoming air passes the combustor at Mach number 2.0
lence behaviour of flow. All the governing equation involved in and the fuel enters at the sonic speed i.e., Mach number 1. All
this modelling has been written in Eq. (1), (2), and (3) i.e., continu-
the needful parameters of fuel and air have been listed in the
ity equation, momentum equation and energy equation respec- Table 2. The species concentration has also been listed in Table 3
with the help of mass fraction. Four different computation bound-
Table 1 aries have been created named as inlet, outlet, walls and fuel inlet.
Mesh elements description of grid generation. Lower and upper wall have been chosen no-slip conditions and 0.5
CFL (Courant Friedrichs Lewy) value is used to do better conver-
Mesh Coarse Moderate Fine
gence. All the outlet data has been extrapolated by using inlet as
Number of element 0.84e + 5 1.45e + 5 2e + 5
a reference values.
Please cite this article as: K. A. Verma, K. M. Pandey and K. K. Sharma, Computational investigation of mixing performance on the effects of innovative
transverse fuel injection system in parallel fuel injection based scramjet combustor, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
matpr.2020.07.388
 K.A. Verma et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx 3

Fig. 2. Grid generation of computational model.

Table 2
Boundary conditions.

Variables Incoming air Fuel (Hydrogen)

Mach number 2.0 1
Static pressure (Pascal) 100,000 100,000
Static temperature (K) 350 250
Density (kg/m3) 0.9734944 0.09698617
Velocity (m/sec) 756.1424 1203.324
Viscosity 1.72e-05 1.72e-05

6. Assumptions for present work

The computational investigation is completed by utilizing com-

putational fluid dynamics. However each of the domain has some
specific assumptions to explore the behavior of flow field by elim-
inating few of the parameters. So the below mentioned assump-
tions have been involved to count the all governing equations.

 Two-dimensional computational combustor model.

 Single-step chemical reaction in species transport modeling.
 Steady state condition to capture a flow field behavior at the
instant.

7. Results and discussion

Two dimensional computational model has been chosen to per-

form the numerical investigation of mixing performance by intro-
ducing innovative transverse fuel injector in parallel fuel injection
based supersonic combustor. The Transverse fuel injector has been
paced 10 mm ahead of wedge shaped strut. The wedge shaped
Fig. 3. Experimental (a) schlieren image, numerical outcome of (b) density contour
strut has been used for parallel fuel injection. The schematic of
and (c) pressure contour.
the fuel entrainment strategy is shown in Fig. 4. Hydrogen is
selected as a fuel to complete the chemical kinetics. To understand
the utilization of additional fuel injector inside the scramjet com-
bustor, mixing efficiency plot and mixing length have been com-
pared in both cases.

7.1. Validation of the model

The steps involved while doing numerical investigation in this

section has been followed in all the forthcoming observation. To
do so, Ansys 14.0 Fluent solver has been opted due to its relevant
features of computational fluid dynamics i.e., turbulent flow with
chemical reactions. The boundary conditions involve in this valida- Fig. 4. Fuel Entrainment strategy.
tion is same as experimental. To compare the results, Schlieren

image has been taken to show the resemblance between density

Table 3
Species concentration. and pressure plot of the computational combustor in Fig. 3. As
the pressure plot at the walls in Fig. 5 also shows the less alter-
Mass fractions O2 H2O N2 H2
ation. The velocity plot at the middle of the section has also been
Air 0.232 0.032 0.736 0 showed in Fig. 6. As going through all the comparison, the accept-
Fuel 0 0 0 1
able outcome has been identified.
Please cite this article as: K. A. Verma, K. M. Pandey and K. K. Sharma, Computational investigation of mixing performance on the effects of innovative
transverse fuel injection system in parallel fuel injection based scramjet combustor, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
matpr.2020.07.388
4 K.A. Verma et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 5. Validation of lower wall pressure.

Fig. 8. Combustion efficiency (%).

7.2. Mixing performance

The purpose of this present investigation is to explore the

behavior and understanding of additional fuel injector. In both
cases, 100% mixing is observed in the mixing efficiency plot shown
in Fig. 7. However the earlier higher mixing between fuel and air is
seen in parallel with transverse fuel injector at 150 mm of the com-
bustor length. And in the parallel fuel injector case, 160 mm of the
combustor length has been identified. However the similar curve
nature is observed in both the cases. As the impact of mixing
behavior can easily be identified by inspecting combustion effi-
ciency plot.
The combustion efficiency plot is the measure of the fuel burn-
ing ability during chemical reaction. As the Fig. 8 shows the com-
bustion efficiency plot of both cases, it can easily be seen that
the initially the combustion is started in parallel with transverse
fuel injector at 130 mm of combustor length. The prior burning is
Fig. 6. Validation of velocity profile at Y = 25 mm (middle section of the only occurred due to the additional innovative transverse injector.
combustor).
However in both the cases, higher combustion efficiency has been
recognized in parallel fuel injector case. The sudden lack of com-
bustion efficiency plot is dependent on the selection of incoming
boundary condition of the transverse fuel injector. Since the trans-
verse fuel injection strategy is diverse in nature compared with
parallel. Due to this the incoming transverse fuel Pressure, temper-
ature and Mach number must play a major role. Which can affect
the behavior of combustion efficiency plot. Moreover the mixing
efficiency plot could also change in terms of mixing length. So
the above observation shows the impact of additional fuel injection
and also the location of fuel injector plays a major role for improv-
ing mixing performance of the combustor.

8. Conclusions

Computational investigation of two dimensional scramjet com-

bustor is performed in the Ansys 14.0 Fluent based solver. The arti-
cle conclude the below finding by comparing two different cases
i.e., parallel fuel injector and parallel with transverse fuel injector.

 The mixing performance has been evaluated with the help of

mixing efficiency plot. The 100% mixing between hydrogen
and air have been started 10 mm earlier in parallel with trans-
verse fuel injector case. At the same location the parallel fuel
Fig. 7. Mixing efficiency (%). injector reaches up to 86% of mixing.
Please cite this article as: K. A. Verma, K. M. Pandey and K. K. Sharma, Computational investigation of mixing performance on the effects of innovative
transverse fuel injection system in parallel fuel injection based scramjet combustor, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
matpr.2020.07.388
 K.A. Verma et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
 The mixing length is found lesser in the case of parallel with
transverse fuel injector is 41 mm, which is calculated from x
to 109 mm.
 The combustion between fuel and air has been started earlier at
130 mm of combustor length in parallel with transverse fuel
injector. However at the exit of the combustor, combustion effi-
ciency is observed less. The behavior of combustion efficiency
can further be analyzed by changing the fuel inlet pressure
value in transverse case for future work.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Kumari Ambe Verma: Conceptualization, Methodology, Soft-
ware, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Visualization, Investi-
gation. Krishna Murari Pandey: Validation. Kaushal Kumar
Sharma: Supervision, Validation.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
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transverse fuel injection system in parallel fuel injection based scramjet combustor, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
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