A compatible inlet condition for simulation of supersonic reacting mixing layers

Abstract A new method for the inlet condition is proposed for the high-accuracy numerical simulation of supersonic reacting mixing layer by considering the conservation of mass, momentum and energy in the mixing process of two freestreams at the inlet. This method can ensure that all parameters at the inlet are compatible. Based on the inlet condition obtained from this method, direct numerical simulations of air/hydrogen supersonic reacting mixing layers are carried out, and the effect of the inlet condition is examined by comparing with that based on traditional inlet conditions. It is shown that the commonly used inlet conditions can lead to abnormal distributions of density and product of gas constant and temperature at the inlet, subsequently causing unreasonable results or even divergence in computation. These problems are avoided by using the proposed compatible inlet condition. The predicted profiles and flowfield are more reasonable, demonstrating the advantages of the proposal.