Supersonic intakes are essential in assuring proper combustion for operating ramjet engines on cruise missiles. However, due to increasing threats and a rapidly changing service environment, today's intakes do not fit anymore to comply with the new set of requirements to tackle the above challenges. Therefore, a novel supersonic intake design is investigated to evaluate the possible integration of this design on modern cruise missiles.
The Submerged Supersonic Intake is a novel intake design that flushes with the external missile hull. An experimental model was investigated in a blow-down wind tunnel with a Mach 2.0 freestream flow. The analysis revolved around the occurrence of the pseudo-shock wave inside the intake's constant-area duct. The flow domain was investigated using Particle Image Velocimetry, Schlieren imagery and wall pressure measurements. Submerged intakes show comparable behavior to generic intakes and the Total Pressure Recovery resembles the results found from experiments in open literature.