Modeling of Scramjet Combustors

Scramjets are air-breathing propulsion systems which can achieve hypersonic speeds at substantially greater efficiency than rocket engines, the only current alternative. These engines will enable transportation of people and goods across the globe in less than 90 minutes, rather than the hours spent in conventional turbojet-powered planes. The FX Lab has studied scramjets extensively, performing high-fidelity large-eddy simulations to improve understanding of the combustion dynamics and develop reduced-order models. Recent work in collaboration with NASA has focused on the extension of the Pareto-efficient chemistry (PEC) framework to scramjet combustion for accurate thrust and wall heat flux prediction at reduced cost.