Evaporation and combustion of n-heptane droplets in supersonic combustor

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the combustion of the n-heptane droplet cloud in the supersonic combustor. The finite volume solver is developed to simulate the two-phase reacting compressible flow using single step reaction mechanism as finite rate chemistry. The focus is on the impacts of droplet size and cloud density on the performance of the scramjet. For the considered physical situation, the upper limit of the droplet size is determined to have higher combustion efficiency, and it is shown that the combustion mode is kinetic-controlled for small sizes and is evaporation-controlled for large droplet sizes. The variation of combustor’s exit total pressure and temperature is also investigated for different droplet cloud densities, demonstrating their apparent opposite behavior that must be considered to get optimum propulsion efficiency. In addition, it is illustrated that thermal choking is another criterion which should be avoided by controlling the fuel mass flow rate for intended flight conditions.