Parallel hydrogen injection into constant-area, high-enthalpy, supersonic airflow

Although the mixing and burning of hydrogen injected into the combustion chamber are essential to the operation of a scramjet, experimental investigations of this process have been limited to speeds of less than 2.2 km/sec. The present experiment is an attempt to extend this limit to flight speeds of about 5 km/sec, whose corresponding stagnation enthalpies range up to MJ/kg. Mach-Zehnder interferograms were taken with a light source of 583 nm and 5 sec duration, while surface pressures were obtained with PCB quartz pressure transducers.