Implementation of two-phase supersonic combustion simulation in VULCAN

The ultimate goal of our study is to accurately predict supersonic combustion, such as in the scramjet engine, when the fuel is initially in the liquid state and needs to be atomized, evaporated, mixed with the oxidant, which will be air in our case, and made to react to produce the desired propulsive force for the vehicle. Although hydrogen has the desired ignition properties for supersonic combustion, it has the serious disadvantage of low energy density, thereby motivating the investigation of alternate, mostly hydrocarbon fuels, such as ethylene, methane, or kerosene. The fuels are sometimes desired in the liquid form, thereby necessitating the need for two-phase supersonic combustion models. These kinds of studies are rare. In this work, we have modified the NASA/AFRL high-speed code VULCAN to enable two-phase supersonic combustion. This paper is a summary of the achievements that have been made so far. Extensive details of our implementation in VULCAN are provided.