Experimental and Numerical Investigation of a Three-Dimensional Supersonic Inlet for the Reusable Sounding Rocket with ATRIUM Engine

抄録

ISAS/JAXA has been conducting research and development on the reusable sounding rocket with air-breathing engines called New Sounding Rocket. Its propulsion system is Air Turbo Rocket for Innovative Unmanned Mission (ATRIUM) engine, which combines an air-turbo engine and a rocket engine. A three-dimensional supersonic inlet for the rocket was designed for Mach 2.0 based on a Busemann inlet. The flow field and the performance of the designed inlet were investigated at the design and off-design points by conducting wind tunnel tests and CFD simulations. At the design point with a freestream Mach number of 2.0, a shock wave formed near the inlet entrance induced flow separation and reduced the inlet performance. Compared to the theoretical values in the critical state, the mass capture ratio and the total pressure recovery were reduced by about 0.2 and up to 0.41, respectively. As for the off-design characteristics, at Mach number of 1.5, the mass capture ratio was significantly reduced due to larger spillage flow by the shock wave formed near the entrance of the inlet. At Mach number of 2.5, the total pressure recovery became smaller because the total pressure loss due to the terminal shock wave was larger than that at the design point. It was concluded that the flow path of the designed inlet would need to be modified to improve its performance, considering the influence of the boundary layer.