A brief review on trans/supercritical internal flow and jet

Aviation kerosene is expected to act as the primary coolant of advanced gas turbine engines. In such situations, the aviation kerosene would exist at subcritical conditions near the critical point or even at supercritical conditions. Correspondingly, it is of vital importance to study the nozzle internal flow and jet for the design of engine combustors. This paper focuses on the internal flow characteristics and jet characteristics under trans/supercritical conditions. The review shows that the existing researches of the trans/supercritical internal flow are mainly limited to small-molecular or simple fluids, constant cross-section pipes, and narrow conditional parameters. The location of phase change depends on thermodynamic characteristics, geometric configurations, and injection parameters. The mixing efficiency of the trans/supercritical jet is largely affected by thermodynamic characteristics. However, the research on trans/supercritical internal flow characteristics of hydrocarbon fuel inside constriction nozzle channels and jet characteristics based on relatively complex nozzle configurations remains to be further developed. Accurate thermodynamic models of supercritical aviation kerosene remain to be established. The deformation and breaking mechanism of the jet fluid interface as well as the jet mixing behavior remains to be captured through advanced optical diagnostic methods. The mixing characteristic parameters and their change laws remain to be summarized and described.