High order numerical simulation of the thermal load on a lobed strut injector for scramjet applications

In this paper, the thermal load on an actively cooled lobed strut injector for scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) applications is investigated numerically. This requires coupled simulations of the strut internal and external flow fields together with the heat conduction in the solid injector body. In order to achieve a fast mixing, the lobed strut is positioned at the channel axis to inject hydrogen into the core of a Mach 3 air stream. There it is exposed to the extremely high temperatures of the high speed flow. While the external air and hydrogen flows are supersonic, the strut internal hydrogen flow is mainly subsonic, in some regions at very low Mach numbers. To enable a simulation of the internal flow field which ranges from very low to very high Mach numbers (approximately Mach 2.25 at the nozzle exit), a preconditioning technique is employed. The compressible finite‐volume scheme uses a spatially fourth order multi‐dimensional limiting process discretization, which is used here for a first time to simulate a geometrically and fluid mechanically highly complex problem. It will be demonstrated that besides its high accuracy the multi‐dimensional limiting process scheme is numerically stable even in case of demanding practical applications. The coupled simulation of the lobed strut injector delivers unique insight into the flow phenomena inside and outside the strut, the heat fluxes, the temperature distribution in the solid material, the required hydrogen mass flux with respect to cooling requirements and details concerning the conditions at the exit of the injector. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.