Compact lightweight ramjet engines incorporating swirl augmented combustion with improved performance

• Main Authors: MORRISON CALVIN Q.JR, EDELMAN RAYMOND B, SCHMOTOLOCHA STEPHEN N, PEDERSON ROBERT J, MORRIS DONALD H
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 18.08.2005
• Edition: 7
• Subjects: AIR; BLASTING; CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES RELATED TOTRANSPORTATION; COMBUSTION APPARATUS; COMBUSTION PROCESSES; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERATING COMBUSTION PRODUCTS OF HIGH PRESSURE OR HIGHVELOCITY, e.g. GAS-TURBINE COMBUSTION CHAMBERS; HEATING; LIGHTING; MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; METHODSOR APPARATUS FOR COMBUSTION USING FLUID FUELOR SOLID FUEL SUSPENDED IN; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS; TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINSTCLIMATE CHANGE; WEAPONS

A ramjet powered device that utilizes a novel swirl generator for rapidly and efficiently atomizing, vaporizing, as necessary, and mixing a fuel into an oxidant. The swirl generator converts an oxidant flow into a turbulent, three-dimensional flowfield into which the fuel is introduced. The swirl generator effects a toroidal outer recirculation zone and an inner central recirculation zone, both of which are configured in a backward-flowing manner that carries heat and combustion byproducts upstream where they are employed to continuously ignite a combustible fuel/oxidizer mixture in adjacent shear layers and stabilizes flame propagation and accelerates combustion throughout the entire combustor. The swirl generator provides smooth combustion with no instabilities and minimum total pressure losses and enables significant reductions in the L/D ratio of the combustor. Other benefits include simplicity, reliability, wide flammability limits and high combustion efficiency and thrust performance.