Numerical study of MHD-bypass scramjet inlets with finite rate chemistry

The influence of magnetic field on a weakly ionized gas in a scramjet inlets is studied in this paper. An electromagnetohydrodynamics (electroMHD) code is developed which includes the mass, momentum and energy conservation equations of magnetohydrodynamics, a bi-temperature model, a seven species chemical kinetics model and electrical conductivity models for both weakly and highly ionized plasma. The code is applied to evaluate the MHD bypass engine concept for improving the efficiency and extending the range of conventional scramjet engine. The MHD by-pass scramjet includes a MHD generator to extract power from the air entering the engine, a neutron beam to control the conductivity of the flow entering the engine and a MHD accelerator in series with the MHD generator to bypass energy around the engine combustor and returning the energy into the exhaust of the engine. The goal of this project is to evaluate this concept by numerical simulation. Two-dimensional elctroMHD equations in generalized coordinates are solved using a modified Runge-Kutta time integration scheme with second-order accurate spatial discretization. A symmetric Davis-Yee Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) flux-limiter is employed to dampen the oscillations in the shock regions. Numerical results show the combined effect of the thermo-chemical phenomena and the magnetic field on the weakly ionized gas. Computations are compared with a simple one-dimensional theoretical analysis.