Abstract—It took man thousands of year to go from a wheel to a car, but only a decade to reach into the space. Keeping in mind this pace of development, this theory based research paper discuss the recent technology in air-breathing engines : The Scramjet Engine.
Scramjet Engines are supersonic Air-Breathing Aero engines that propels the host aero structure to supersonic speeds greater than Mach 7. The current field of scramjet propulsion is facing metallurgical issues as the scramjet combustion-chamber's heat load is so large that even the most advanced composite materials are not able to withstand it. At the peak value of supersonic air intake in the engine, the air entering is at extreme temperature thus unfit for cooling the structure. Thus a regenerative cooling cycle is being proposed to thermodynamically optimize the scramjet system, using the fuel (which is liquid hydrogen) as the primary coolant.
Liquid Hydrogen, the fuel used for scramjet combustion has an enthalpy of combustion of 286kJ.mol-1 with a specific heat of 14.304 J.g-1.K-1 (25o Celsius) thus making it apt for the combustion as well as cooling purpose respectively. The Regenerative cycle proposed for the cooling system is different from the conventional. The circulation of Hydrogen is done twice thereby increasing the fuel heat sink. Thermo dynamical analysis were done and the comparisons of the two states were also obtained giving a result of increment of 35% on the overall efficiency.
(Pre-Final Year Student) Mechanical Engineering,, SRM University, Chennai, India.
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Cite: Ansh Verma, "Ameliorative Study of a Scramjet Engine by Regenerative Cooing using Finite Element,"
International Journal of Engineering and Technology vol. 2, no. 6, pp. 592-597, 2010.
