Characteristics of hydrogen jet combustion in a high-enthalpy supersonic crossflow

The facilitation of a stable combustion process is of utmost importance for the realizability and performance of hypersonic propulsion systems. To elucidate the turbulent combustion characteristics, wall-modeled large eddy simulations of a transverse jet injection into a heated supersonic flow are conducted employing a detailed reaction mechanism. The computation framework utilizes an adaptive central upwind weighted essentially nonoscillatory (WENO-CU) scheme to achieve the sixth order accuracy in smooth flowfields, while keeping a good shock capturing ability. The reacting zones agree well with experimental measurements in terms of the instantaneous distribution of OH radicals. And the flame penetration height has been predicted with an error of less than 17%. It is found that the turbulent reacting flow is dominated by nonpremixed combustion mainly taking place in the near-wall region and jet windward shear-layer. Moreover, the autoignition process, which plays a critical role in stabilizing supersonic combustion, shows to favor a fuel-lean or not very fuel-rich environment of a high enthalpy. Local scalar dissipation induced by turbulence gives rise to a rapid fuel mixing with the surrounding air. However, this effect may also lead to the decrease in local temperature. Published under license by AIP Publishing.