Design and Testing of a Combustor for a Turboramjet Engine for UAV and Missile Applications

An existing freejet facility was upgraded and its range of operation extended into the high subsonic regime for operation as a test rig for the development of a combined-cycle, turbo-ramjet engine. A combustor was designed, developed, and tested as the afterburner for the turbo-ramjet engine. At subsonic speeds with the afterburner running, an increase in thrust of 40% was measured over the baseline turbojet running at 80% spool speed. A Computational Fluid Dynamics model of the flow through the shrouded turbojet engine was developed and successfully used to assist in predicting the bypass ratio of the engine at different Mach numbers. Numerous recommendations were made to improve the operation of the test rig, to improve the performance of the turbo-ramjet engine, and refine the numerical models. These recommended improvements will extend the present capabilities to design and analyze small combined cycle engines which have an application in unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles.