Simulated-fuel-jet/shock-wave interaction

Frank Houwing1 , Alexis Bishop2 , Matthew Gaston3 , Jodie Fox1 , Paul Danehy4 , and Neil Mudford5
1 2 3 4 5

Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia The University of Queensland, QLD 4072, Australia University of Technology Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA 23681-2199, USA University of New South Wales, ADFA, ACT, 2600, Australia

Abstract. This paper considers the breakdown of streamwise vorticity as a means of enhancing the rate of fuel-air mixing in supersonic combustion. In particular, the prospect is investigated of improving fuel-air mixing in a scramjet engine through baroclinic torque and the amplication of streamwise vorticity arising out of the interaction between an oblique shock and a fuel jet issuing from a hypermixing fuel injector.

Introduction

This paper considers the breakdown of streamwise vorticity as a means of enhancing the rate of fuel-air mixing in a supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) engine[5]. In particular, the prospect is investigated of improving fuel-air mixing in a scramjet engine through the application of baroclinic torque and the amplication of streamwise vorticity associated with a fuel jet produced by a hypermixing fuel injector[7]. This is accomplished by studying the interaction of the ow from a hypermixing fuel injector with an oblique shock wave, using planar laser-induced uorescence (PLIF) imaging of nitric oxide (NO) present in trace amounts in the simulated fuel. In order to study the ow free of the complicating eects of combustion, helium replaces hydrogen in the simulated fuel stream of the model scramjet combustor. Nitrogen replaces air in the simulated oxidant stream to eliminate NO there. LIF is then produced in mixtures of simulated fuel and oxidant but, ideally, not in the pure oxidant stream.

Theoretical Considerations on Shock-Vortex Interactions

Figure 1 (a) is a schematic that represents a single fuel jet, with no accompanying streamwise vorticity, interacting with an oblique shock wave. Because the fuel jet contains uid at a density lower than the surrounding coow, the interaction with the oblique shock wave causes the jet to acquire streamwise vorticity through the phenomenon of baroclinic torque[8]. This is produced by the interaction of orthogonal components of the gradients of density and pressure. Specically, the baroclinic source term in the vorticity transport equation is given by[4] 1 D = 2 p. (1) Dt

Frank Houwing et al.

When a fuel jet is accompanied by streamwise vorticity, an important issue is how the shock wave and vorticity inuence each other. The shock-vortex interaction generally leads to three-dimensional curvature of the shock front because of the strong gradients of total pressure and Mach number in a supersonic streamwise vortex[6]. Theoretical inviscid analysis[3] has shown that the magnitude of the vorticity component tangential to the shock front is increased during interaction with a shock wave, while the magnitude of the normal component is unchanged. This analysis shows that the vorticity jump across a general three-dimensional steady curved shock wave is given by n = 0 , n t =
t

(2) , (3)

(1 V1n ) V 1t t V 1t 1 V1n

where: = t + n is the vorticity vector; V is the velocity vector; is the uid density; is the unit vector normal to the shock surface; t is the surface n gradient operator; subscripts t and n denote components tangential and normal to the shock surface respectively; 2 1 and 2 1 , where subscripts 1 and 2 denote conditions immediately upstream and immediately downstream of the shock front, respectively. A fuel jet produced by a hypermixing fuel injector is generally accompanied by multiple streamwise vortices created by the production of streamwise vorticity in the external ow over specially designed structural features such as compression and expansion ramps, vanes etc. Flow separation at the injector trailing edge places these vortices in close proximity to the fuel jet whereupon they proceed to
Oblique shock wave Fuel jet (c) 38
60 15

Distorted jet

(a)

fuel strut

131

14 o 25

wedge

25

fuel strut (b)

112 75

wedge
80

25

side elevation
22

10 8mm 8mm 16mm

fuel injector

plan view

131

7. 5
16mm 24mm

(d)

Fig. 1. (a) Fuel jet interacting with oblique shock wave. (b, c) Fuel injection strut and shock wave generator - side elevation and plan view. (d) Swept compression expansion ramp (SCER) hypermixing fuel injector. Dimensions in millimetres.

Simulated-fuel-jet/shock-wave interaction

inuence the development of the mixing layer. The jet-vortex-shock interaction for these jets is therefore highly complex, which is why experiment is crucial to the study of the behaviour of the interaction. One such injector, known as the swept compression expansion ramp (SCER) injector[2], produces a pair of counter-rotating streamwise vortices for each fuel jet. The presence of these streamwise vortices close to the jet/coow interface promotes mixing in the near wake by spreading out the jet thereby increasing the interfacial area between the two uids. In addition, the counter-rotation of the two vortices tends to split each jet in two[1] even without the presence of an intersecting shock. This previous work provided motivation for the current study, which seeks to determine whether interaction of the simulated-fuel jets with an oblique shock wave can increase both the streamwise vorticity and jet bifurcation and thereby promote mixing beyond what can be achieved with the hypermixing injector alone.

3
3.1

Experiment
Flow Conditions and Model

The experiments were performed using the Australian National Universitys freepiston shock tunnel T3, which generates a supersonic nitrogen ow to simulate the coowing oxidant stream around the model fuel strut. A conical nozzle with a 125 mm diameter exit and 35 mm diameter throat produces a free stream ow with a static pressure of 40 kPa, a static temperature of 700 K and Mach number of 4.8. Figures 1 (b and c) illustrate the experimental apparatus which produces the desired interactions in the tunnel test section. As this gure shows, a fuel injector is mounted in the aft section of a horizontal sharp-nosed at plate which simulates a fuel strut in a scramjet engine. The strut is at zero incidence and zero yaw with respect to the oncoming ow. A second sharp-nosed at plate is set at incidence below the fuel strut. The leading edge of this second plate is slightly forward of the fuel strut trailing edge and parallel to it. The attached oblique shock o this lower plate then intersects the helium jets issuing from the fuel strut. The supersonic free stream ow passes over the fuel strut. The simulated fuel consists of a mixture of 1% CO2 , 1.5% NO and 97.5% He injected from the fuel injector at a Mach number of 1.64, a pressure of 40 kPa and a temperature of 160 K. CO2 is an ecient quencher that reduces the uorescence lifetime of NO. It is added to the mix to provide sucient quenching to avoid motional blurring, which is the loss of spatial resolution caused by ow motion during uorescence emission. The emphasis of the current work is on the imaging of these simulated-fuel jets rather than of the whole oweld. Therefore the simulated fuel is doped with the PLIF target species (NO) while the simulated coowing oxidant stream is nominally free of NO.

Frank Houwing et al.

Figure 1 (d) shows the SCER hypermixing fuel injector used here. It is based on the design used in previous investigations by Gaston et al[2] and Fox et al[1]. It contains six fuel-jet ports, with each port located in the base of a swept compression ramp and anked by expansion ramps. The ramp height is 8.0 mm, the port diameter is 4.0 mm and the port centreline is midway up the ramp. 3.2 Fluorescence Imaging System

The two optical arrangements (A and B) of the laser and camera are illustrated in Fig. 2 (a and b). The laser sheet illuminates one vertical streamwise section and four horizontal streamwise sections of the ow, one section at a time. In each case, the line of sight of the CCD camera, which captures and focuses the uorescence from the illuminated planes, is perpendicular to the laser sheet. The ve images are denoted as follows. Vert is the image of the vertical section which intersects the SCER central injector ports as shown in Fig. 2 (c). Horiz1 is the image of the horizontal section coincident with the strut horizontal plane of symmetry, as shown in Fig. 2 (d). Horiz2 is the image of the horizontal section which passes through the centres of the three SCER upper injector ports. The horizontal section imaged in Horiz3 lies just above the tops of the SCER upper ports and that imaged in Horiz4 lies just above the tops of the SCER upper compression ramps.

Imaging Configration A
Shock tunnel nozzle Injector strut
FLOW

imaged region: 576 x 384 pixels 78.1 x 52.1 mm

Window Jet Flow

h

Laser sheet Window Intensified CCD Camera

illuminated region (100 mm wide)

(a)
Imaging Configration B
Intensified CCD Camera Shock tunnel nozzle Window

(c) (d)
FLOW imaged region: 576 x 384 pixels 78.1 x 52.1 mm

Injector strut Flow

Window Laser sheet Jet

(b)

illuminated region (100 mm wide)

Fig. 2. Optical congurations: (a) For capture of the vertical section images, (b) For capture of horizontal section images. (c) Illuminated and imaged regions of vertical section, (d) Illuminated and imaged regions of horizontal sections; case shown is symmetry plane section. The sharp nosed at plate at incidence and its accompanying oblique shock are omitted for clarity.

Simulated-fuel-jet/shock-wave interaction

Results and Discussion

Figure 3 shows a set of the images produced by PLIF, as described above. These images all employ the same logarithmic greyscale in which light and dark indicate high and low uorescence signal intensity respectively. It is apparent from the gure that some features, such as shock waves, are visible far from the jet even though the ow there should be free of NO. A spectral lter in front of the ICCD camera severely attenuates the scattered laser light so that Rayleigh scattered light, which is of low intensity in the tunnel, should be eliminated. A Mie scattering signal should be coarser in appearance. It therefore seems likely that it is LIF, implying that minute quantities of oxygen may have

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

(g)

(h)

Fig. 3. PLIF images of simulated fuel. Oncoming ow is left to right. (a) Vert planebase injector, oblique shock. (b) Vert SCER injector, no oblique shock. (c) Horiz2 SCER injector, no oblique shock. (d) Vert SCER injector, oblique shock. (e) Horiz1 SCER injector, oblique shock. (f ) Horiz2 SCER injector, oblique shock. (g) Horiz3 SCER injector, oblique shock. (h) Horiz4 SCER injector, oblique shock.

Frank Houwing et al.

contaminated the test gas leading to NO production in the shock tube. Whatever the signals origin, it is not of concern for our present purpose as the image of the seeded jet is clear and laser attenuation due to NO in the simulated oxidant stream will be negligible. In any case, it is helpful for interpretation to see these otherwise invisible features. Figure 3 (a) shows Vert of a single helium jet interacting with the oblique shock. This jet issues from a plane base injector installed in place of the SCER injector. Apart from this change, the optical and ow arrangements are as shown in Fig. 2 (c). Figure 3 (a) shows the jet to be largely unaected by the shock, apart from turning with the ow as it enters the shock. In particular, little or no jet bifurcation is observed. The absence of such bifurcation is supported by horizontal plane images not presented here. This jet and mixing layer are accompanied by very little streamwise vorticity as a plane base injector has no compression or expansion ramps to generate it. It is therefore an example of the interaction illustrated in Figure 1 (a). Figures 3 (b and c) show images Vert and Horiz2, respectively, of jets issuing from the SCER with no oblique shock present. Fig. 3 (d) shows the Vert image of the SCER central jets interacting with the oblique shock wave while the remaining images are horizontal views of the same ow realised in other shots. A number of observations can be made from comparison of these images. Firstly, the interacting jets have spread out in the vertical plane and turned ahead of the plane of the incident oblique shock. This suggests that the otherwise straight oblique shock has been distorted into a curved shock. This curvature is not visible in the images but this is not surprising as the PLIF signal is relatively insensitive to pressure and temperature for the chosen laser transitions and conditions. The curved shock is expected to be similar to that of a bow wave on a blunt body. Downstream of the shock, the jets bifurcate and consequently disappear rapidly from the illuminated vertical plane. Figure 3 (e) shows the Horiz1 image of the SCER horizontal symmetry plane. Upstream of the interaction region, only small amounts of jet uid are transported into this plane by turbulent mixing in the mixing layer. Hence low PLIF signal levels are observed here. Downstream of the interaction region, the helium jets originating from the lower ports are bifurcated by the oblique shock wave and deected upwards. They consequently intersect the illuminated plane and produce the stronger signals seen on the right of the gure. The Horiz2 image in Figure 3 (f) clearly shows the initial stages of the jet bifurcation before the jet material moves upwards and out of the illuminated plane. Before bifurcating, the jets spread rapidly taking up shapes reminiscent of that predicted for ow in the vicinity of a bursting vortex[5]. The Horiz3 and Horiz4 images in Figure 3 (g and h) show the bifurcated jets further downstream of the interaction region as their deection by the shock carries them upwards. Clearly, the SCER jets show much stronger spreading and bifurcation than the plane base injector jet when acted upon by the oblique shock. This implies that, in the ows examined here, streamwise vorticity amplication and inter-

Simulated-fuel-jet/shock-wave interaction

action with the shock is a more powerful mixing enhancement mechanism than baroclinic torque.

Summary and Conclusions

The interaction of a shock wave with helium jets issuing from a hypermixing fuel injector has been visualised using uorescence imaging. The observed bifurcation of the jets is attributed to the eects of baroclinic torque and the shock-induced amplication of streamwise vorticity, particularly the latter. The jet displays behaviour consistent with the presence of a bubble shock standing out from the incident plane oblique shock. It has yet to be determined whether this feature is produced by vortex bursting or by variations in total pressure in the mixing oweld. Further work is required to ascertain whether or not the streamwise vortices have burst.

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by a Small ARC Grant No. F00134 funded through the Australian National University. The technical expertise provided by Mr Paul Walsh and Mr Paul Tant is gratefully acknowledged.

References
1. J. S. Fox, A. F. P. Houwing, P. M. Danehy, M. J. Gaston, N. R. Mudford, S. L. Gai: Mole-Fraction-Sensitive Imaging of Hypermixing Shear Layers, J. Prop. Power 17(2) 284-292 (2001) 2. M. J. Gaston, N. R. Mudford, A. F. P. Houwing: A Comparison of Two Hypermixing Fuel Injectors in a Supersonic Combustor, AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Reno, NV, AIAA Paper No. 98-0964 (1998) 3. W. D. Hayes:, The vorticity jump across a gasdynamic discontinuity, J. Fluid Mech., 2, 595600 (1957) 4. F. E. Marble, E. E. Zukoski, J. W. Jacobs, G. J. Hendricks, I. A. Waitz:, Shock Enhancement and Control of Hypersonic Mixing and Combustion, AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE 26th Joint Propulsion Conference, Orlando, FL, AIAA Paper, 90-1981 (1990) 5. A. Nedungadi, M. J. Lewis:, Computational study of the owelds associated with oblique shock/vortex interactions, AIAA Journal, 34 (12), 254553 (1996) 6. M. K. Smart and I. M. Kalkhoran, Eect of shock strength on oblique shockwave/vortex interaction, AIAA Journal, 33 (11), 213743 (1995) 7. I. A. Waitz, F. E. Marble, E. E. Zukoski:, Vorticity generation by contoured wall injectors, AIAA/SAE/ASME/ASEE 28th Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit, Nashville, TN, USA, AIAA Paper, 92-3550 (1992) 8. J. Yang, T. Kubota, E. E. Zukoski:, An Analytical and Computational Investigation of Shock-induced Vortical Flows, 30th Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, Reno, NV, AIAA Paper, 92-0316 (1992)