Home – Home – Jornals – Thermophysics and Aeromechanics 2017 number 6

Modern concepts of operation of supersonic inlets of high-velocity air-breathing engines are analyzed. It is demonstrated that the flow in the engine duct becomes extremely complicated in off-design modes of inlet operation, which can lead to unpredictable consequences, in particular, to inlet unstart. The term “inlet unstart” is considered in the present paper as a synonym of the absence of theoretical understanding and prediction of gas-dynamic phenomena. Various approaches are proposed to ensure self-regulation of the inlet-combustor system for air-breathing engines. Possible directions of further research are indicated for the purpose of stable operation of inlets in a wide range of flight conditions.

A coupled NS-DSMC method possessing adapted-interface and two-way coupling features is studied to simulate the plume impingement effects of space thrusters. The continuum-rarefied interface is determined by combining Kn_GL and P_tne continuum breakdown parameters. State-based coupling scheme is adopted to transfer information between continuum and particle solvers, and an overlapping grid technique is investigated to combine structured-grid NS code and Cartesian-grid DSMC code to form the coupled solver. Flow problem of a conical thruster plume impinging on a cone surface is simulated using the coupled solver, and the simulation result is compared with experimental data, which proves the validity of the proposed method. Plume flow while the ascent stage of lunar module lifting off in lunar environment is also computed by using the present coupled NS-DSMC method to demonstrate its capability. The whole flow field from combustion chamber to the vacuum environment is obtained, and the result reveals that special attention should be paid to the plume aerodynamic force at the early stage of launching process.