Development and Validation of a Compressible Reacting Gas-Dynamic Flow Solver for Supersonic Combustion

Abstract

An approach based on the OpenFOAM library has been developed to solve a high-speed, multicomponent mixture of a reacting, compressible flow. This work presents comprehensive validation of the newly developed solver, called compressibleCentralReactingFoam, with different supersonic flows, including shocks, expansion waves, and turbulence–combustion interaction. The comparisons of the simulation results with experimental and computational data confirm the fidelity of this solver for problems involving multicomponent high-speed reactive flows. The gas dynamics of turbulence–chemistry interaction are modeled using a partially stirred reactor formulation and provide promising results to better understand the complex physics involved in supersonic combustors. A time-scale analysis based on local Damköhler numbers reveals different regimes of turbulent combustion. In the core of the jet flow, the Damköhler number is relatively high, indicating that the reaction time scale is smaller than the turbulent mixing time scale. This means that the combustion is controlled by turbulent mixing. In the shear layer, where the heat release rate and the scalar dissipation rate have the highest value, the flame is stabilized due to finite rate chemistry with small Damköhler numbers and a limited fraction of fine structure. This solver allows three-dimensional gas dynamic simulation of high-speed multicomponent reactive flows relevant to practical combustion applications.

Keywords

• scramjet
• gas dynamics
• supersonic combustion
• turbulence–combustion interaction
• compressible solver
• high-speed flows