Experimental and numerical investigation of a forward sweep sidewall compression scramjet inlet with forebody compression

A generic forward sweep sidewall compression scramjet inlet with forebody compression was designed to improve the performance of mass capture.Experiment was conducted in NUAA 100mm×100mm Mach 5.3 wind tunnel. The flow field was numerically simulated by means of FLUENT software.Based on the numerical and experimental result,typical characteristics of the flow field were identified,and the main performance parameters were obtained.Experimental results indicate at Mach 5.3 design point,the forward sweep sidewall compression inlet has a mass capture ratio of above 0.85,which is about 20% higher than that of the conventional backward sweep inlet.Combined with the numerical result,Pitot-pressure distribution at the exit of the isolator shows a pair of vortexes occuring at the bottom of the isolator because of the high pressure difference between topwall and bottomwall,which separates the flow of the isolator into two regions.One region has high speed and high total pressure recovery and the other has low speed and low total pressure recovery.