Mixing enhancement of reacting parallel fuel jets in a supersonic combustor

Pursuant to a NASA-Langley development program for a scramjet HST propulsion system entailing the optimization of the scramjet combustor's fuel-air mixing and reaction characteristics, a numerical study has been conducted of the candidate parallel fuel injectors. Attention is given to a method for flow mixing-process and combustion-efficiency enhancement in which a supersonic circular hydrogen jet coflows with a supersonic air stream. When enhanced by a planar oblique shock, the injector configuration exhibited a substantial degree of induced vorticity in the fuel stream which increased mixing and chemical reaction rates, relative to the unshocked configuration. The resulting heat release was effective in breaking down the stable hydrogen vortex pair that had inhibited more extensive fuel-air mixing.