An experimental investigation of shear layer mixing in supersonic flows

In the design of a combustor, information is necessary for the mixing of the fuel and air in order to determine the optimum combustor length. In scramjet combustors the mixing often takes place in a shear layer that is formed between the fuel and air. This research was an experimental study of shear layers in supersonic flows aimed at determining what mechanisms affect the shear layer so that the mixing could be better predicted. A second goal was to provide sufficient instream information for use in checking existing Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) codes.; The shear layer between a supersonic two-dimensional air stream (M = 2 or M = 3) was mixed with a near sonic two-dimensional air stream (M {dollar}simeq{dollar} 1.2). Instream measurements of pitot pressure and cone static pressure were used to determine mean velocity profiles at various axial locations. These velocity profiles were used to determine the shear layer spreading rate and are compared with various predictions. Wall measurements of static pressure, temperature and skin friction were also taken and are presented.; The instream measurements were also used for comparison with an existing CFD code. The upstream velocity, pressure and temperature profiles were used as a starting profile and the code was used to calculate downstream profiles for comparison with the experimental results. Reasonable agreement between the measured and calculated results was obtained.