Comparative CFD Investigation of Drag and Pressure Loss in Solid, Perforated and Modified V-Gutter Flameholders for Afterburner Applications

Author

Gouri Dattatreya, Jainar Sahana, K S Dhyan Pemmaiah, Lakshmi B


Abstract

 V-gutter flameholders are widely used in afterburner systems because the wake formed downstream of a bluff body provides a recirculation region that supports flame stabilization.  However, the flameholder also obstructs the exhaust flow and introduces aerodynamic drag and pressure loss. This study compares three configurations—solid V-gutter, perforated V-gutter and modified V-gutter—using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results reported in the project study. The models were evaluated under the same stated numerical setup, with an inlet temperature of 300 K, inlet velocity of 17.3 m/s, an atmospheric pressure outlet, adiabatic no-slip walls and the SST k– ω turbulence model. The Chapter 6 result table reports drag forces of 16.162 N, 15.722 N and 13.042 N for the solid, perforated and modified configurations, respectively. 

The corresponding reported pressure-loss values are 604.563, 569.295 and 442.069; the source  does not clearly state the unit for these values. Relative to the solid V-gutter, the modified design reduces drag by approximately 19.31% and the reported pressure-loss value by approximately 26.88%. The perforated design gives smaller reductions of approximately 2.72% in drag and 5.83% in pressure loss. These results identify the modified V-gutter as the best-performing configuration for the two reported aerodynamic metrics within the investigated CFD setup. Since  the study does not report combustion, flame stability or experimental validation results, the modified design should be treated as a promising aerodynamic candidate rather than a fully validated afterburner flameholder.


Keywords

Afterburner, V-gutter flameholder, bluff body, computational fluid dynamics, drag force, pressure loss, flame stabilization.



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References


[1] Department of Aeronautical Engineering, “Investigation on Drag Reduction Analysis of Flameholder in Afterburner Applications,” project report, 2026– 2027. Unpublished student project report supplied by the user.

[2] S. M. Bush and E. J. Gutmark, “Reacting and nonreacting flowfields of a V-gutter stabilized flame,” AIAA Journal, vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 662– 672, 2007, doi: 10.2514/1.22655.

[3] D. R. Umyshev, A. M. Dostiyarov, M. Y. Tumanov, and Q. Wang, “Experimental investigation ofV-gutter flameholders,”Thermal Science, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 1011– 1019, 2017, doi:10.2298/TSCI151209072U.

[4] M. Mollaei and H. Ghassemi, “Numerical investigation of cold flow over regular and wavyV-gutters,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G: Journal ofAerospace Engineering, vol. 233, no. 15, 2019, doi: 10.1177/0954410019852560.

[5] S. Srinivasan, J. J. Isaac, C. Rajashekar, and A. Arokkiaswamy, “Drag reduction of V shapedring gutter of an afterburner by tandem bluff bodies using CFD,” IOSR Journal of Mechanicaland Civil Engineering, vol. 1, no. 6, pp. 41– 50, 2012.

Author checklist before submission

  • Replace the author, institution and email placeholders with the actual details.
  • Verify the conflicting pressure-loss values against the original ANSYS output files.
  • Confirm the pressure-loss unit and whether static or total pressure was used.
  • Add the mesh size, cell count, mesh-independence results and residual convergence plots if available.
  • Insert the actual mesh, geometry, velocity-contour and pressure-contour figures from the project.
  • Do not claim flame-stability or combustion-efficiency improvements unless reacting-flow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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