Abstract
Numerical design optimization techniques are implemented for the improvement of the ram accelerator performance. The design object is to find the minimum ram tube length required to accelerate projectile from initial velocity $V_0$ to target velocity $V_e$. The premixture is composed of $H_2,\;O_2,\;N_2$ and the mole numbers of these species are selected as design variables. The objective function and the constraints are linearized during the optimization process and gradient-based Simplex method and SLP(Sequential Linear Programming) have been employed. With the assumption of two dimensional inviscid flow for internal flow field, the analyses of the nonequilibrium chemical reactions for 8 steps 7 species lave been performed. To determined the tube length, ram tube internal flow field is assumed to be in a quasi-steady state and the flow velocity is divided into several subregions with equal interval. Hence the thrust coefficients and accelerations for corresponding subregions are obtained and integrated for the whole velocity region. With the proposed design optimization techniques, the total ram tube length had been reduced $19\%$ within 7 design iterations. This optimization procedure can be directly applied to the multi-stage, multi-premixture ram accelerator design optimization problems.
