Symposium on Applied Aerodynamics and Design of Aerospace Vehicle (SAROD 2022)

December 15 -17, 2022, Hyderabad, India

Parametric Study of a Kerosene-fueled Scramjet to Examine Engine

Performance
Hritam Nath1, Shri Amit Kumar Singh 2, Ms. Vidya G.3, Dr. Aravind V.4
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, India.
(hn00india@gmail.com)

ABSTRACT
The main challenge involved in design of a scramjet engine is to achieve steady combustion in supersonic flow. One of the
methods for flameholding is to create turbulence with the help of struts and injecting fuel into the turbulent wake regions,
and this is called “strut-based injection”. A parametric study is conducted varying the axial location of fuel-injecting
struts in a kerosene-fueled scramjet engine at Mach 6 and angle of attack of 2˚, the x-location of strut-base being our
parameter. The isolator length decreases with each configuration (struts move upstream) keeping the rest of the engine
geometry intact. The flow is simulated as a 3D compressible turbulent reacting flow on PARAS-3D software. Non-
reacting flows are also simulated to observe the effect of combustion. The variation of cumulative axial and normal force
coefficients, pitching moment, load distribution, pressure distribution on the wall and in the flow-field, temperature,
Mach number and the mass flow rates of different species involved are observed. The pressure is observed to be the
maximum at the strut-base for a particular configuration, which increases with decreasing isolator length. Drag and inlet
adiabatic efficiency do not change significantly. Also, with more length available for combustion, more products are
formed and combustion efficiency increases. A desirable configuration would maximize lift, thrust and efficiency;
minimize pitching moment and non-uniformity of reaction in the flow-field. The accuracy of the results can be confirmed
after comparing these results with those from other CFD codes.
Key Words: scramjet, hypersonic, inlet ramp, isolator, combustion chamber, nozzle, strut, turbulence, mixing
efficiency, combustion efficiency, pressure ratio, pressure loss, separation bubble, surrogate fuel, Cartesian mesh.
initial Mach speed from which it can accelerate, just
like a ramjet. Scramjets are suited for hypersonic flight
NOMENCLATURE (M>5), as in conventional ramjets there will be
significant loss of stagnation pressure and severe
L = Length of the vehicle increment of temperature (exceeding material limit) at
𝑥̅ = non-dimensionalised x coordinate (x/L) those speeds, but in scramjets air is still supersonic in
𝑦̅ = non-dimensionalised y coordinate (y/L) the combustion chamber, so we get better efficiency
and lesser issues with material science.
𝑧̅ = non-dimensionalised z coordinate (z/L)
P = Static pressure Scramjet stands for Supersonic Combustion
P0 = Stagnation pressure Ramjet, i.e., a ramjet (external combustion engine
T = Static temperature with no moving parts to generate thrust) where
T0 = Stagnation temperature combustion happens in supersonic stream of air.
M = Mach number Scramjets are suited for hypersonic flight (M>5), as in
φ = Equivalence ratio conventional ramjets there will be significant loss of
f = fuel-air mass flow rate ratio stagnation pressure (to make the hypersonic stream
subsonic before combustion, typically though a series
of oblique shocks ending with a normal shock) and
1. INTRODUCTION severe increment of temperature (due to extreme
When it comes to moving fast through pressure ratio across the inlet, which exceeds material
atmosphere, air-breathing vehicles have a significant limit) at those speeds. In a scramjet, we do not
advantage over rockets, that is, there is no need to encounter a normal shock in decelerating a hypersonic
carry separate oxidizer within the vehicle. That is the stream to lower supersonic speed, thus pressure ratio,
application of air-breathing propulsion is being looked total pressure recovery and temperature increment are
upon in every field of aerospace. To cruise at within practically acceptable limits.
hypersonic Mach numbers, the typical air-breathing
A typical scramjet engine consists of four
solution is a supersonic-combustion ramjet aka
major parts, viz – inlet, isolator, combustion chamber
scramjet. Scramjet has no moving parts, and
and nozzle. Inlet (usually consists of one or more inlet
compression and expansion happen only because of
ramps) and isolator compress the air flow through a
variable area. So, they cannot start from rest and need
series of oblique shocks externally and internally.
a mechanism (usually a rocket booster) to take it to an
Combustion increases the pressure and temperature of
Symposium on Applied Aerodynamics and Design of Aerospace Vehicle (SAROD 2022)
December 15 -17, 2022, Hyderabad, India
the flow and creates high pressure differential across
the nozzle. The energy released in combustion is
extracted in the nozzle in the form of kinetic energy
and thus thrust is obtained. There are two major
challenges when it comes to scramjet operation, viz,
creating enough turbulence for fuel-air mixing and
flameholding. This is done by injecting fuel into
subsonic recirculation pockets created by different
types of obstructions in the flow, like struts or cavities
etc. Profile of the scramjet walls plays a big role in the
lift and net thrust obtained. Extensive optimization
study is required to find a balance between
performance and efficiency, and accordingly the
geometry takes shape[5,7].
USSR flew the first working scramjet GLL
Kholod in 1991[6]. But research on scramjets had
started in both USSR and the West during the cold war
era. Currently, USA, Russia, China and India are the
only nations to have flown a scramjet-powered
vehicle, but only Russia has a fully developed
scramjet-powered vehicle (3M22 Zircon cruise
missile) that has entered production.
Our current study aims at improving, or just
to observe the trends in the typical engine performance
parameters like thrust, drag, lift, combustion
efficiency etc. with movement of struts and pick up the
best possible strut location with minimal compromises
and maximum performance within practical limits.
2. GEOMETRY
The geometry (Figure 1) of the generic
vehicle, from nose to tail, includes a multi-ramp intake
for external compression, an isolator, a constant area
duct containing the fuel-injecting struts, a divergent
section with very small divergence and a nozzle
(highly divergent). As we are only focusing on the
performance of the engine, we eliminate the wings and
tails of the vehicle for the sake of simplicity.
Figure 1: Section of the vehicle at the symmetry
plane
One configuration is chosen as baseline (case
1) and 4 other configurations are created by moving
the struts upstream into the isolator by 4 different
lengths, viz – 0.01913L, 0.03826L, 0.05739L and
0.07652L (case 2, 3, 4 and 5 respectively). Thus, the
isolator length goes from 0.1175L to 0.1116L from
case 1 to case 5 (decreasing in steps of 0.01913L).
3. MODELLING
The 3D models of these 5 configurations are
created using Solidworks® and imported into ISRO's
in-house PARAS-3D (Parallel Aerodynamic
Simulator) software. This tool has the following
features:
1. It can generate 3D mesh or grid automatically
based on some grid parameters as user inputs.
2. Paras generates only cartesian grid.
3. It solves 3D Navier-Stokes equation using
Finite Volume approach.
The turbulence is modelled by means of k-ε
model and u, is the turbulent viscosity. k is the kinetic
energy of turbulence, ε is the dissipation rate and Cμ
is a constant = 0.09. The turbulent Prandtl number is
taken as 0.92.
The Navier-Stokes equation in the conservative
form with species conservation equation is solved
using standard finite volume method on an adaptive
Cartesian Mesh. The interface fluxes are computed
using an upwind scheme of the type AUSM. To ensure
second order accuracy, linear reconstruction of
primitive variables is done from the cell centre to the
cell interface with a min-mod limiter. In the regions of
strong gradients, the scheme becomes first order. The
viscous fluxes are obtained by standard central
differencing. The solution marches in time for each
cell based on its local time step. Since the species
conservation equations are very stiff due to highly
non-linear production terms, a point implicit scheme is
adopted for the conservation equations alone to
accelerate the flow solution.
In this work, C10H20 has been used as the
surrogate fuel for Kerosene. Surrogate fuels are
mixtures of pure compounds as instead of real fuels for
research, modeling and simulation purposes. They are
blended to mimic specific properties of the real fuel.
A 10 species, 10 step reduced kinetic
mechanism with finite rate chemistry has been
implemented in PARAS-3D. This is a combustion
model rather than the actual combustion mechanism of
kerosene. A combustion model is introduced to reduce
Symposium on Applied Aerodynamics and Design of Aerospace Vehicle (SAROD 2022)
December 15 -17, 2022, Hyderabad, India

computational cost at the cost of reduced accuracy.

The steps are as follows[4]:

C10H20 + 5O2 → 10CO + 10O2

CO + O ⇌ CO2 + Mthird
CO + OH ⇌ CO2 + H
H2 + O2 ⇌ 2OH
H + O2 ⇌ OH + O
OH + H2 ⇌ H2O + H
O + H2 ⇌ OH + H Figure 2: Initial Grid on PARAS
2OH ⇌ H2O + O
2H ⇌ H2 + Mthird After necessary pre-processing, the geometry
file is submitted for grid generation. PARAS-3D
H + OH ⇌ H2O + Mthird
generates the grid (fig. 2-4) automatically with proper
grid parameters as user inputs, to refine the grid near
Forward and backward reaction rates are skewed geometric locations like injection holes and
expressed by the formula: leading edges. The grid is clustered well to capture the
𝜔𝑓 = 𝑘𝑓 ∏[𝐴𝑠 ]𝛼𝑠 body. Boundary conditions are as follows[1]:
𝑠 1. supersonic inflow at the inlet,
𝜔𝑏 = 𝑘𝑏 ∏[𝐵𝑠 ]𝛽𝑠 2. supersonic outflow at far-field,
𝑠
3. wall boundary conditions handled by a
where kf and kb are the forward and backward reaction modified wall function.
rate constants, and [As] and [Bs] are the mole 4. Symmetry at z = 0.
concentrations of species on the left and right hand Kerosene is injected in gaseous form in choked
sides of the reaction formula, αs and βs are the species conditions with φ = 0.85. The free stream Mach
stoichiometric coefficients. The reaction rate constant number is 6.
is determined by the Arrhenius formula:
𝑘 = 𝐴𝑇 𝑏 𝑒𝑥𝑝(−𝐶/𝑇 )
where the parameters A, b and C are constants. The
concentration of the third body [Mthird] is equal to the
sum ∑[As]Kef fs is where Kef fs is the efficiency of the
species. The third body efficiency of H2O was taken
equal to 12 and the efficiency of H2 equal to 2.5 and
for the other species N2 equal to 1. No coupling is
assumed between the turbulence and chemical
kinetics, which means the reaction rates are calculated
for mean temperature and mean species
concentrations.

4. PROBLEM SETUP AND SIMULATION

The vehicle is cut with the x-y plane and the
half on the +z direction is chosen to analysis. The
computational domain chosen is Sufficiently large in Figure 3: Final Grid on PARAS
all three directions. The domain is x/D ∈ [−1.7094,
11.1111], y/D ∈ [−5.1282, 5.1282], z/D ∈ [0, 5.1282],
where D is the width of the whole vehicle.
Symposium on Applied Aerodynamics and Design of Aerospace Vehicle (SAROD 2022)
December 15 -17, 2022, Hyderabad, India

exothermic reaction) happen at the same time, the

net effect being increment in total temperature but
drop in static temperature and pressure (fig. 10-
11).
5. Mixing efficiency (fig. 14) increases with axial
position and becomes close to 1 at the exit of the
nozzle in all cases. This increment becomes
sharper as we move from case 1 to 5.
6. Combustion efficiency goes from 70% in case 1
to 58% in case 5 (fig. 15).
7. Pressure recovery of inlet (P0,isolator exit/P0∞) is
calculated manually, and is almost 38% in all 5
cases. Thus, isentropic efficiency of the inlet also
does not vary much and is around 72.49%.
8. Combustion is prevalent near the upper wall in the
first 2 cases and near the lower wall in the last 2
Figure 4: Final Grid (Zoomed-in View) cases. This is because of the big separation
bubbles on the lower wall in case 4 and 5 facilitate
The solution process is provided with a script better mixing and combustion, which can be seen
which includes order of the method used (first or in figure 19.
second), number of iterations, refinement level and
custom refinement locations. After the solution file is 9. Overall stagnation pressure loss is more than 90%
generated, grid independence and convergence are in all the cases, increasing with strut movement
checked. Post-processing in PARAS-3D gives the (fig. 12).
Results. From those, variation of cumulative Cx, Cy 10. Fig. 16-18 show some additional palettes to
and Mz, load distribution (∂Cn/∂α), P variation on the justify the plots already discussed.
wall, area-averaged P, and mass-averaged P0, T, M, m,
of different species etc. are extracted. Simulations with
no combustion (but with fuel injection) are also
performed to compare cumulative Cx, Cy, Mz and
pressure data with respective combustion cases.
5. DISCUSSION OF TEST RESULTS
We follow the trends in the flow pattern from
the case 1 to the case 5 and observe the following:
1. Cx (-ve) and Mz (-ve) become less negative, while
Cy becomes less positive, as can be seen in figures
2-4. Also, it is clear from non-reacting (NR) cases
that combustion makes the final Cx negative from Figure 5: Variation of cumulative Cx
positive, indicating generation of thrust, Cy
increases while pitching moment changes sign
(fig. 5-7).
2. Mass-averaged Mach number in the combustion
chamber keeps decreasing but remains supersonic
throughout. Lowest mass-averaged Mach number
(in a particular case) in the combustion chamber
keeps decreasing (fig. 8).
3. Maximum area-averaged pressure increases as
there is more length for completion of
combustion, with Pmax/P∞ reaching 115 in case 5
from 90 in case 1 (fig. 9).
4. Combustion and production of CO2 and H2O
continue beyond the nozzle in all cases, thus,
combustion efficiency never reaches 100%. Also, Figure 6: Variation of cumulative Cy
in the nozzle, expansion and heat release (due to
Symposium on Applied Aerodynamics and Design of Aerospace Vehicle (SAROD 2022)
December 15 -17, 2022, Hyderabad, India

Figure 7: Variation of cumulative Mz Figure 8: Mass-averaged Mach number

6. CONCLUSION
1. Higher pressure and temperature are achieved in
the combustion chamber as isolator length is
decreased.
2. Decrease of pitching moment from case 1 to 5 is
a positive development, as it will require less
efforts in the fuselage design.
3. Case 1 has maximum thrust and lift, and it has
decreased slightly thereafter. This is because of
changing only one geometry parameter (strut
location going upstream into the isolator). Better Figure 9: Area-averaged Pressure
thrust and lift can be extracted from cases 2-5 if
we make subsequent changes in the length of the
constant area combustor duct, and the shape of the
divergence and the nozzle.
4. Combustion efficiency decreases from case 1 to 5
and the maximum is for case 1 and 2 where we got
70%. This is because of lower heat
release(confirmed from lower production of CO2)
as we go from case 1 to 5.
5. Pressure recovery of inlet achieved is almost 38%
with respect to the freestream, in all the cases.
6. It is understood that moving the struts upstream
(case 1 to 5), hence decreasing isolator length and
increasing combustor length is not enough if we Figure 10: Mass averaged Temperature
keep the rest of the geometry intact, as we get
lesser thrust, lift and efficiency. Thus, redesign of
the divergence and nozzle is required and
combustor length needs to be decreased to get the
advantage of the higher chamber pressure and
temperature with shorter isolator.

Figure 11: Mass-averaged Total Temperature

Symposium on Applied Aerodynamics and Design of Aerospace Vehicle (SAROD 2022)
December 15 -17, 2022, Hyderabad, India

AUTHORS:
1
Hritam Nath:
Hritam Nath is pursuing his
B. Tech. in aerospace
engineering at Indian
Institute of Space Science
and Technology,
Thiruvananthapuram, India.

Figure 12: Mass-averaged Total Pressure 2

Shri Amit Kumar Singh:
Shri Amit Kumar Singh is working as
Scientist/Engineer-SF in Aero Combustion Modelling
Division at VSSC, Thiruvananthapuram, India.
3
Ms. Vidya G.:
Ms. Vidya G. is working as Scientist/Engineer-G in
Aero Combustion Modelling Division at VSSC,
Thiruvananthapuram, India.
4
Dr. Aravind V.:
Dr. Aravind V. is a professor in the Department of
Aerospace Engineering at Indian Institute of Space
Figure 13: Mass fraction of CO2
Science and Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram, India.

Figure 16: Mach number in combustion chamber

Figure 14: Mixing Efficiency

Figure 15: Combustion efficiency variation along

length Figure 17: Pressure near the midplane
Symposium on Applied Aerodynamics and Design of Aerospace Vehicle (SAROD 2022)
December 15 -17, 2022, Hyderabad, India

characteristics of an integrated air breathing

scramjet vehicle concept’.

[2] P. Manna, Ramesh Behera, Debasis

Chakraborty, Liquid-Fueled Strut-Based
Scramjet Combustor Design: A
Computational Fluid Dynamics Approach,
Journal of Propulsion and Power, Volume 24,
Issue 2, 2008, Pages 274-281.

[3] Carneiro, R., Araújo, P. P. B., Marinho, G. S.,

Martos, J. F. A., Passaro, A. and Toro, P. G.
P. (2022), ‘Leading-to-trailing edge
theoretical design of a generic scramjet’, AIP
Advances 12(5), 055322.
Figure 18: Mach number near the midplane

[4] Choi, J. (2011), A quasi global mechanism

of kerosene combustion for propulsion
applications.

[5] Choi, J. (2014), Parametric scramjet

analysis.

[6] Curran, E. T. (2001), ‘Scramjet engines: The

first forty years’, Journal of Propulsion and
Power 17(6), 1138–1148.

[7] Curran, E. T. and Murthy, S.N.B. (2001),

‘Scramjet Propulsion’, American Institute of
Aeronautics & Astronautics.

Figure 19: CO2 Mass Fraction near the Midplane

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
This work was possible because of the
recommendation from Dr. Ayyappan G., chairman,
ASRG, IIST. All these simulations were run from the
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram,
India and simulations ran on clusters at NARL,
Tirupati. The process was supported by several
scientists and interns at VSSC.

REFERENCES
[1] Singh, A. K., Das, D., Manokaran, K., G., V.
and Ashok, V. (2018), ‘Propulsion
characteristics of an integrated air breathing
scramjet vehicle concept propulsion
Symposium on Applied Aerodynamics and Design of Aerospace Vehicle (SAROD 2022)
December 15 -17, 2022, Hyderabad, India