Numerical investigation on the extrusive and intrusive subcavity types and their location on the primary recirculation zone for the supersonic turbulent flow through cavity type flameholders

Supersonic turbulent non-reacting flow through a cavity-type flameholder employed in scramjet engines with and without subcavities is numerically investigated. The governing equations describing the flow are solved by employing a density-based solver i.e., rhoCentralFoam which is an open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code in OpenFOAM. The turbulence is modeled using the two-equation k-omega SST (shear stress transport) turbulence model. In the present study implication of subcavity types (i.e., extrusive and intrusive) on recircu-lation patterns and their strength at different subcavity aspect ratios (l/d) and subcavity locations at different inflow Mach numbers is investigated. A significant increase in the strength of the primary recirculation zone is observed for modified rectangle cavity 2 (MRC2) compared to the base rectangle cavity (BRC) and modified rectangle cavity 1 (MRC1). Results show a significant decrease in the size of the secondary recirculation zone for modified angle cavity 2 (MAC2) for all the subcavity aspect ratios and subcavity leading-edge distances (SLDs) at Mach 2. Results also indicate that at a fixed Mach number, the strength of the primary recirculation decreases with the increase in base cavity aspect ratio (L/D) for all the cavity types. Results show a substantial decrease in the velocity magnitude of cavity fluid with the decrease in cavity aft wall angle from 90 degrees to 30 degrees, which shows that the strength of the primary recirculation zone for BRC and MRC2 is higher compared to base angle cavity (BAC) and MAC2. Results show a 20.4776 % and 7.3822 % increase in the peak values of streamwise and normal velocities for MRC2 compared to BRC and MRC1 at Mach 2, and the corresponding increase in velocities for Mach 3 are 14.7979% and 5.6693% respectively for all the aspect rations and SLDs. Present results are validated with the experimental results available in the literature.

Automated summary

The numerical investigation of supersonic turbulent non-reacting flow through a cavity-type flameholder in scramjet engines reveals the significant impact of subcavity types, aspect ratios, and locations on recirculation patterns and strengths.