Scramjet engine ignition by ns aperiodic discharge

Numerous attempts have been made to improve the combustion characteristics with the help of electrical discharges. In particular, ignition of the fuel in the cavity was initiated and stabilized using standard aviation spark plugs based on a sliding spark. all existing solutions for ignition systems have significant drawbacks that limit the effectiveness of their use for hypersonic systems. This is mainly due to conflicting requirements for such an ignition system. It must work stably both at moderate and at very high gas velocities; it should provide effective ignition both at low temperatures and at temperatures close to the self-ignition threshold; finally, it must have low energy consumption. The solution proposed in this paper is a high-voltage NS aperiodic discharge. The feature of the discharge is the generation of high-frequency, low-amplitude NS pulses in combination with low-frequency, high-amplitude pulses to initiate the discharge. We use the pulses of alternating polarity to increase the potential difference between the residual space charge and high-voltage electrode and to facilitate the discharge start and propagation. Because of the combined excitation with two different types of high-voltage pulses the total energy consumption for the system operation is relatively low and could be estimated as P = 5-10 kW for 1000 cm³ ignition volume for a core of a supersonic gas flow.