Combustion modes periodical transition in a hydrogen-fueled scramjet combustor with rear-wall-expansion cavity flameholder

Abstract Cavity-stabilized combustion modes periodical transition in a laboratory hydrogen-fueled scramjet combustor were captured by high speed imaging. Experiments were performed with an isolator entrance Mach number of 2.92, and a sonic transverse fuel jet upstream of the cavity was employed. The reproducibility of the results had been tested in several repeated experiments. It is observed that, under a fixed combustor entry flow parameters and fuel equivalence ratio, after the flame has been fully developed, the flame structure may periodically transform between two different combustion modes. Specifically, under a moderate equivalence ratio, the flame structure switches between the cavity shear-layer stabilized mode and the combined shear-layer/recirculation stabilized mode, which shows an apparent periodicity with a period of about 7.5 ms. The formation mechanism for this novel phenomena is analyzed and some suppositions are given. When increasing the equivalence ratio to a high level, the flame structure shows a quasi-periodic low-frequency oscillation and the combustion mode changes between the combined shear-layer/recirculation stabilized mode and the cavity-assisted jet wake stabilized mode. At last, the formation mechanism and characteristics of the combined shear-layer/recirculation stabilized mode are detailed analyzed.