Computational fluid dynamical modelling of supersonic combustion and comparisons with experiments in a free piston shock tunnel

Computational fluid dynamical simulations were carried out for a number of different scramjet configurations, which differed in their values for the location and angle of the thrust surface. These configurations were investigated experimentally in free-piston shock tunnel tests. The comparison between simulations and experiments indicated that the code successfully predicted the pressure levels for combustion and non-combustion cases, however, significant smearing of shock phenomena occurred in the simulations, resulting in discrepancies between theoretical and experimental shock structures in the duct.