A Review of Fuel Pre-injection in Supersonic, Chemically Reacting Flows

Developing an efficient, supersonic combustion-based, air breathing propulsion cycle operating above Mach 3.5, especially when conventional hydrocarbon fuels are sought and particularly when liquid fuels are preferred to increase density, requires mostly effective mechanisms to improve mixing efficiency. One way to extend the time available for mixing is to inject part of the fuel upstream of the vehicle’s combustion chamber. Injection from the wall remains one of the most challenging problems in supersonic aerodynamics, including the requirement to minimize impulse losses, improve fuel-air mixing, reduce inlet∕combustor interactions, and promote flame stability. This article presents a review of studies involving liquid and, in selected cases, gaseous fuel injected in supersonic inlets or in combustor’s insulators. In all these studies, the fuel was injected from a wall in a wake of thin swept pylons at low dynamic pressure ratios (qjet∕qair=0.6–1.5), including individual pylon∕injector geometries and combinations in the inlet and combustor’s isolator, a variety of injection conditions, different injectants, and evaluated their effects on fuel plume spray, impulse losses, and mixing efficiency. This review article cites 47 references.