The Effects of Planar Symmetry and Radiative Heat Losses in a Three-Dimensional Transient CFD Simulation of Right Angle Flow through a Brayton-Gluhareff Cycle Pressure Jet Engine

摘要

Although developed in the 1950s by Eugene M. Gluhareff and continuously studied for several decades, there exists only cursory, one-dimensional analyses on his pressure jet engine. The pressure jet is a unique form of ramjet engine capable of generating efficient static thrust. It was designed as a helicopter rotor tip-propulsor and operated on the combined principles of high-pressure fuel injection to entrain air through a staged inlet system while acoustically-tuning this inlet system to facilitate better mixing of the fuel and air, subsequently boosting combustion efficiency. This study is part of a greater effort to model the engine principles with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) including combustion via propane oxidation chemical kinetics. It includes the applicable theory behind both the engine's operation and modeling in CFD including selection of a propane kinetic mechanism, the simulation setup, and discussion of the CFD results compared to experimental measurements. This discussion is primarily concerned with the applicability and limitations of assuming a planar symmetrical boundary to reduce computational runtime and the effects of radiative heat losses. The paper ends with a discussion of future research into the principles at work inside the pressure jet engine.