Multiscale Modeling and Simulation on Active Cooling Process of Supercritical-Pressure Hydrocarbon Fuel in Ramjet Engines

As the flight speed increases to the hypersonic regime, thermal management becomes a significant challenge. An effective and reliable thermal protection system (TPS) plays an important role in ensuring the operability of ramjet engines. Regenerative cooling technology is widely adopted in current TPS. During the cooling process, a complex physicochemical process of hydrocarbon fuels at supercritical pressure in the regenerative cooling channel will occur, exerting significant impacts on cooling efficiency. This chapter will introduce the multiscale modeling and simulation of the regenerative cooling process of supercritical-pressure hydrocarbon fuels in ramjet engines. Firstly, a comprehensive and systematic review of the current research status on the thermal structure of advanced propulsion systems applying superalloy or carbon fiber-reinforced ceramic composites will be given. Then, the numerical modeling and simulation techniques describing the flow, heat transfer, thermal oxidation coking, and pyrolytic coking phenomena of hydrocarbon fuels at supercritical pressures will be discussed. Finally, multiscale numerical modeling and simulation techniques for thermal-mechanical analysis of composite materials were given.