Scramjet Aerodynamics

Scramjets are the technology that will allow for hypersonic cruise to be achieved in the future, allowing for vehicles capable of travelling from London to Tokyo in a couple hours. Additionally, they are a promising technology for reducing the cost of access to space and could allow for single stage to orbit vehicles. However, the internal aerodynamics of a scramjet engine are not well understood. Scramjet unstart, combustion stability, and isolator flowfields are not well understood and severely restrict functionality and widespread adoption of scramjets as a high speed propulsion technology. Our group has begun work on fundamental research directed at understanding scramjet unstart and the unsteady shock-train characteristics in scramjet isolators, which will allow for their use in civil applications in the future.