Simulation at Mach 2 flow of ethylene/air reacting mixture within a cavity flame holder

The ongoing simulation of flame holder cavities remains a pivotal aspect in the advancement of scramjet engine development. This study aims to evaluate the applicability of Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence models in simulating supersonic reacting flows within flame holder cavities. RANS remains the standard approach for engineering simulations in this regime, so it is important to understand how different RANS models perform. Four RANS turbulence models, the k-ϵ, Realizable k-ϵ, k-ω SST, and $$-f models, are used for the simulation of a flame holder cavity at Mach 2 using two different chemical mechanisms. Results were compared to experimental data and prior simulation results from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). The $$-f turbulence model was found to provide the best overall results and often provided similar or superior results to previous results using a higher fidelity hybrid RANS/LES approach. Additionally, the two chemical mechanisms are compared, with the smaller of the two mechanisms being found to provide better results when used with the RANS models investigated in this work.