Advanced Flow Control for High Speed Propulsion Systems

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The study and development of high speed airbreathing propulsion is generally associated with countries at the forefront of advanced propulsion systems. The research required to understand and develop these concepts often has application to a much wider variety of fields. Recent research conducted at Carleton University in collaboration with the JAXA Kakuda Space Propulsion Center on airbreathing rocket propulsion has experimentally shown that the Exchange Inlet concept is effective at significantly decreasing engine length while behaving closer to the theoretical optimum than more conventional designs. Plasma actuators have been shown to be effective on a wide range of devices at low speeds in terms of modifying boundary layers for the delay or acceleration of separation. However, their potential effect on internal high speed aerodynamics is an open field of research. Therefore, the combination of both of these technologies (Exchange Inlet and plasma actuator) will provide a unique opportunity to contribute to advanced propulsion technologies through studying the fundamental principles that govern the relationship between compressible aerodynamics and electromagnetics. Similar to the concept of radical farming in scramjet propulsion, sequential operation of plasma actuators can create pockets of ionized flow. These pockets can be manipulated electromagnetically if sufficient ionization is achieved to accelerate, extract/input energy, or actively guide the flow. Depending on the design of the plasma actuator, small jets, recirculation, and swirl can be generated to create small flow perturbations. These can be beneficial to processes which require mixing (such as rapid combustion) and also to inlet and internal flows which generally operate most effectively when the flow follows the wall contour. The magnitude and shape of these perturbations can be changed significantly depending on the design of the plasma actuator itself, an effect that will also be studied in this research proposal. Using numerical simulation techniques currently available in our research group, numerous flowfields will be examined. Time accurate simulations of potential plasma actuator designs will be studied and compared to experimental data collected by our research group. This will yield information on how best to optimize the design to maximize the desired induced flow behavior as well as help understand the physical principles underlying the results. A successful outcome of this proposal will advance knowledge in the areas magnetohydrodynamic simulation, plasma generation, and high speed flow manipulation for propulsion. Through the incorporation plasma actuators (which in isolation are currently under considerable research and development internationally) into a novel, in house, rocket technology, a strong body of Canadian researchers will be trained.