ALBERT

Description: The initial phase of hydrocarbon-fueled ground tests supporting Flight 2 of the Hypersonic International Flight Research Experiment (HIFiRE) Program has been conducted in the NASA Langley Arc-Heated Scramjet Test Facility (AHSTF). The HIFiRE Program, an Air Force-lead international cooperative program includes eight different flight test experiments designed to target specific challenges of hypersonic flight. The second of the eight planned flight experiments is a hydrocarbon-fueled scramjet flight test intended to demonstrate dual-mode to scramjet-mode operation and verify the scramjet performance prediction and design tools. A performance goal is the achievement of a combusted fuel equivalence ratio greater than 0.7 while in scramjet mode. The ground test rig, designated the HIFiRE Direct Connect Rig (HDCR), is a full-scale, heat sink, direct-connect ground test article that duplicates both the flowpath lines and the instrumentation layout of the isolator and combustor portion of the flight test hardware. The primary objectives of the HDCR Phase I tests are to verify the operability of the HIFiRE isolator/combustor across the Mach 6.0-8.0 flight regime and to establish a fuel distribution schedule to ensure a successful mode transition prior to the HiFIRE payload Critical Design Review. Although the phase I test plans include testing over the Mach 6 to 8 flight simulation range, only Mach 6 testing will be reported in this paper. Experimental results presented here include flowpath surface pressure, temperature, and heat flux distributions that demonstrate the operation of the flowpath over a small range of test conditions around the nominal Mach 6 simulation, as well as a range of fuel equivalence ratios and fuel injection distributions. Both ethylene and a mixture of ethylene and methane (planned for flight) were tested. Maximum back pressure and flameholding limits, as well as a baseline fuel schedule, that covers the Mach 5.84-6.5 test space have been identified.

Description: As part of the Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation (HIFiRE) Direct-Connect Rig (HDCR) test and analysis activity, three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed using two Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes solvers. Measurements obtained from ground testing in the NASA Langley Arc-Heated Scramjet Test Facility (AHSTF) were used to specify inflow conditions for the simulations and combustor data from four representative tests were used as benchmarks. Test cases at simulated flight enthalpies of Mach 5.84, 6.5, 7.5, and 8.0 were analyzed. Modeling parameters (e.g., turbulent Schmidt number and compressibility treatment) were tuned such that the CFD results closely matched the experimental results. The tuned modeling parameters were used to establish a standard practice in HIFiRE combustor analysis. Combustor performance and operating mode were examined and were found to meet or exceed the objectives of the HIFiRE Flight 2 experiment. In addition, the calibrated CFD tools were then applied to make predictions of combustor operation and performance for the flight configuration and to aid in understanding the impacts of ground and flight uncertainties on combustor operation.

Description: Supersonic combustion performance of a bi-component gaseous hydrocarbon fuel mixture is one of the primary aspects under investigation in the HIFiRE Flight 2 experiment. In-flight instrumentation and post-test analyses will be two key elements used to determine the combustion performance. Pre-flight computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyses provide valuable information that can be used to optimize the placement of a constrained set of wall pressure instrumentation in the experiment. The simulations also allow pre-flight assessments of performance sensitivities leading to estimates of overall uncertainty in the determination of combustion efficiency. Based on the pre-flight CFD results, 128 wall pressure sensors have been located throughout the isolator/combustor flowpath to minimize the error in determining the wall pressure force at Mach 8 flight conditions. Also, sensitivity analyses show that mass capture and combustor exit stream thrust are the two primary contributors to uncertainty in combustion efficiency.