Combustion Experiments Performed within the LAPCAT I Project - An Overview

The European Commission co-funded research project LAPCAT I - Long-Term Advanced Propulsion Concepts and Technologies - was performed within the timeframe spring 2005 until spring 2008. The project was coordinated by the European Space Research and Technology Center, ESA-ESTEC and the consortium consisted of 11 partners from industry, research institutions and universities. The objectives of LAPCAT I were to identify and assess critical propulsion technologies required to reduce long-distance flights, e.g. from Brussels to Sydney, to less than 4 hours. Achieving this goal intrinsically requires a new flight regime for commercial transport with Mach numbers ranging from 4 to 8. At these high speeds, classical turbo-jet engines are not feasible and need to be replaced by advanced airbreathing engines. Different combined cycles, i.e. turbine based combined cycles (TBCC) and rocket based combined cycles (RBCC) were evaluated both on fundamental research level and in the framework of vehicle system studies. The research activities of the project were structured in six main technical work packages. In the present paper, a synthesis of the work package related to combustion experiments is given. The research focused on supersonic combustion experiments in a connected tube facility, investigations of a generic supersonic combustion configuration consisting of intake, combustor and exhaust in a free jet facility, shock tube studies of the disintegration process of hydro carbons in high pressure combustion and the investigation of high pressure combustion of liquid oxygen / hydro carbons in a micro combustor.