Numerical study on the combustion characteristics and performances of single and multi-injectors in a scramjet combustor

The present study numerically investigates the combustion characteristics and performance of a direct-connect gaseous hydrogen-fueled scramjet combustor depending on the injector scheme. A comprehensive numerical simulation was conducted with an improved delayed detached eddy simulation (IDDES) approach. The framework utilized a high-order accurate numerical scheme to ensure the high fidelity of the results. A total of ten cases were considered combining two injector schemes and five injection pressure conditions. Each injector scheme had a similar range of global equivalence ratios. Numerical results revealed the differences in the local dynamics of the counter-rotating vortex pair. The multi-injector case did not maintain the jet's systemic vortex structure, which plays a primary role in the fuel-air mixing and burning. It owes to the interactions between the jet-jet and the jet-wall surface, where the interaction leads to the loss of momentum. This characteristic of the multi-injector makes the fuel-air mixing contact surface get closer to a thin-flat layer, resulting in the flame being anchored on a flat shear layer over the entire combustor. As a result, the combustion efficiency of the multi-injector is much lower than that of the single injector under a similar equivalence ratio range. Present results indicate that the multi-injector, which is expected to increase the combustion performance by maximizing the fuel-air contact surface, may operate in contrast to its original anticipation under certain configurations and conditions. It also suggests that optimizing the combustion performance requires careful design of injector distributions considering the distances and interactions between injector-to-injector and injector-to-wall.