Review of cavity-stabilized combustion for scramjet applications
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G: Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Published online on February 07, 2014
Abstract
Cavities are widely used as flameholders in supersonic combustors due to their outstanding potential to stabilize combustion without excessive total pressure loss. A review of cavity-stabilized combustion for scramjet applications is provided in this article. The topics cover the fundamental problems and recent advances regarding cavity-organized combustion in high-speed flows, including combustion stabilization modes and mechanisms, flame stability analyses and correlations, combustion oscillations, and other related issues. Remarkable questions such as cavity-coupled fuel injection, flow and combustion coupling, optimal cavity geometry and scale, auto-ignition and flame propagation interactions, and unsteady effects are discussed. Then, an attempt is made to provide some guidelines for the future research of cavity flameholders.