• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2004.03a
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• pp.75-78
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• 2004

Various jet engines (Turbine engine family and RAM Jet engine) have been developed for high speed aircrafts. but their application to hypersonic flight is restricted by principle problems such as increase of total pressure loss and thermal stress. Therefore, the development of next generation propulsion system for hypersonic aircraft is a very important subject in the aerospace engineering field, SCRAM Jet engine based on a key technology, Supersonic Combustion. is supposed as the best choice for the hypersonic flight. Since Supersonic Combustion requires both rapid ignition and stable flame holding within supersonic air stream, much attention have to be given on the mixing state between air stream and fuel flow. However. the wider diffusion of fuel is expected with less total pressure loss in the supersonic air stream. So. in this study the direction of fuel injection is inclined 30 degree to downstream and the total pressure of jet is controlled for lower penetration height than thickness of boundary layer. Under these flow configuration both streams, fuel and supersonic air stream, would not mix enough. To spread fuel wider into supersonic air an aerodynamic force, baroclinic torque, is adopted. Baroclinic torque is generated by a spatial misalignment between pressure gradient (shock wave plane) and density gradient (mixing layer). A wedge is installed in downstream of injector orifice to induce an oblique shock. The schlieren optical visualization from side transparent wall and the total pressure measurement at exit cross section of combustor estimate how mixing is enhanced by the incidence of shock wave into supersonic boundary layer composed by fuel and air. In this study non-combustionable helium gas is injected with total pressure 0.66㎫ instead of flammable fuel to clarify mixing process. Mach number 1.8. total pressure O.5㎫, total temperature 288K are set up for supersonic air stream.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.603-616
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• 2007

Roy Huddle, having invented the coated particle in Harwell 1957, stated in the early 1970s that we know now everything about particles and coatings and should be going over to deal with other problems. This was on the occasion of the Dragon fuel performance information meeting London 1973: How wrong a genius be! It took until 1978 that really good particles were made in Germany, then during the Japanese HTTR production in the 1990s and finally the Chinese 2000-2001 campaign for HTR-10. Here, we present a review of history and present status. Today, good fuel is measured by different standards from the seventies: where $9*10^{-4}$ initial free heavy metal fraction was typical for early AVR carbide fuel and $3*10^{-4}$ initial free heavy metal fraction was acceptable for oxide fuel in THTR, we insist on values more than an order of magnitude below this value today. Half a percent of particle failure at the end-of-irradiation, another ancient standard, is not even acceptable today, even for the most severe accidents. While legislation and licensing has not changed, one of the reasons we insist on these improvements is the preference for passive systems rather than active controls of earlier times. After renewed HTGR interest, we are reporting about the start of new or reactivated coated particle work in several parts of the world, considering the aspects of designs/ traditional and new materials, manufacturing technologies/ quality control quality assurance, irradiation and accident performance, modeling and performance predictions, and fuel cycle aspects and spent fuel treatment. In very general terms, the coated particle should be strong, reliable, retentive, and affordable. These properties have to be quantified and will be eventually optimized for a specific application system. Results obtained so far indicate that the same particle can be used for steam cycle applications with $700-750^{\circ}C$ helium coolant gas exit, for gas turbine applications at $850-900^{\circ}C$ and for process heat/hydrogen generation applications with $950^{\circ}C$ outlet temperatures. There is a clear set of standards for modem high quality fuel in terms of low levels of heavy metal contamination, manufacture-induced particle defects during fuel body and fuel element making, irradiation/accident induced particle failures and limits on fission product release from intact particles. While gas-cooled reactor design is still open-ended with blocks for the prismatic and spherical fuel elements for the pebble-bed design, there is near worldwide agreement on high quality fuel: a $500{\mu}m$ diameter $UO_2$ kernel of 10% enrichment is surrounded by a $100{\mu}m$ thick sacrificial buffer layer to be followed by a dense inner pyrocarbon layer, a high quality silicon carbide layer of $35{\mu}m$ thickness and theoretical density and another outer pyrocarbon layer. Good performance has been demonstrated both under operational and under accident conditions, i.e. to 10% FIMA and maximum $1600^{\circ}C$ afterwards. And it is the wide-ranging demonstration experience that makes this particle superior. Recommendations are made for further work: 1. Generation of data for presently manufactured materials, e.g. SiC strength and strength distribution, PyC creep and shrinkage and many more material data sets. 2. Renewed start of irradiation and accident testing of modem coated particle fuel. 3. Analysis of existing and newly created data with a view to demonstrate satisfactory performance at burnups beyond 10% FIMA and complete fission product retention even in accidents that go beyond $1600^{\circ}C$ for a short period of time. This work should proceed at both national and international level.