Studies on Unsteady Shock Interactions Near a Generic Scramjet Inlet

Abstract

An experimental and numerical study is presented to show the effect of cowl length and angle on the ramp/cowl shock interaction phenomena for a two-dimensional planar scramjet inlet model. Experiments are conducted in a hypersonic shock tunnel, at Mach 8, at four lengths of cowl and three cowl angles. Investigations include schlieren flow visualization near the cowl region and static pressure and heat transfer rate measurement inside the inlet chamber. Various ramp/cowl shock interaction processes resulted for different cowl configurations have been visualized using a high-speed camera. Edney type-II interference pattern is observed for 131 and 141-mm cowl lengths, whereas it is an Edney type-I interference pattern in case of a 151 mm cowl with all their typical features resulting because of the ramp/cowl shock interaction. Experiments with a cowl configuration other than 0 deg show the flow to be established through the inlet because of the reduced contraction ratio. Heat transfer peaks can be observed for the 10 and 20-deg cowl cases where flow through the inlet is found to be established. These may serve as the possible locations of fuel injection. Copyright © 2009 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc.