Hypersonic propulsion has become an increasingly important research field over the past fifty years, and subsequent interest in propulsion systems utilizing supersonic combustion has emerged. Air-breathing engines are desirable for such applications as hypersonic flight vehicles would not need to carry an oxidizer. Therefore, hypersonic air-breathing propulsion systems require an inlet with high mass capture and compressive efficiency. The present work seeks to outline the development and validation of a novel design tool for producing air inlet designs for hypersonic vehicles at variable flight conditions. A Busemann inlet was chosen for its high compressive efficiency, geometric flexibility, and existing experimental validation. The design tool uses the Taylor-Maccoll equation to generate a streamline through a conical flow field. A streamline tracing technique is used to produce three-dimensional inlet surfaces with various capture areas. Additionally, a surface morphing process is implemented to combine inlet profiles for improved engine compatibility. The inlet morphing process allowed for the creation of inlets with offset exit profiles. These offset profiles were evaluated at off-design Mach numbers using Star-CCM+ to quantify efficiency metrics and characterize starting phenomena.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:honorstheses-2546 |
| Date | 01 January 2023 |
| Creators | White, Zachary P |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Honors Undergraduate Theses |
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