Evolution and application of CFD techniques for scramjet engine analysis

Capabilities developed over the past several years in the area of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) have provided today's aerospace engineer with an extremely powerful tool for analysis of complex flowfields of interest. A recent resurgence in the interest in hypersonics has resulted in an increased effort in the development of supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) engines as an efficient means of propulsion for aircraft and missiles flying above Mach 5. Use of CFD techniques to design and analyze scramjet engine concepts is proving an invaluable asset, with applicability ranging from the use of simple inviscid codes for parametric studies of various inlet geometries to the use of unsteady Navier-Stokes codes with chemistry models to investigate the details of complex phenomena in a scramjet combustor. This article discusses the evolution of computational fluid dynamics with reference to milestones in scramjet research in the United States, followed by an overview of some applications of available computational capabilities to the design and analysis of scramjet engines being developed at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and at the NASA Langley Research Center. Finally, future directions in the application of CFD to the development of scramjet engines are discussed.