Is this rusty metal object a flame holder for a ramjet engine?

[fd_colorado]

Ramjet flame holder? Or??

Any ideas you have would be greatly appreciated.

The pictures were posted on a forum and after hundreds of guesses by various forum members, one of the people that I queried, a rocket expert from Wyoming, seems to be very close in his assessment (see below).

Seems like the best guess is a flame holder for a ramjet.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v177/fastgixx/IMAG1202.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v177/fastgixx/IMAG1204.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v177/fastgixx/IMAG1203.jpg



from a rocket expert in Wyoming:

I'm fairly sure it has nothing to do with rockets. It is the wrong shape and wrong material for one thing. I'm fairly familiar with rocket engines from the V2 to modern day and it just doesn't fit anything in that category.

It looks like a high temperature steel like stainless steel or even a special high temperature alloy used in aircraft engines. I used to work for Pratt & Whitney aircraft designing combustors and it looks like that type of material. That started me thinking more about the shape and the letters MAE 213 on the side. The MAE 213 is obviously been roughly hand scribed on the side due to the unevenness and size of the letters.

After looking at the shape I have a GUESS on what it might be. I believe it might be a flame holder that goes inside a ramjet engine. I think the MAE 213 stands for Marquardt Aircraft Experimental 213. I would guess this was used in an experimental ramjet engine and this was flame holder design 213. In the old days, it was only possible to see how these things would work by experimentation. Today, we do it with computers, but in those days you had to build and test it to see how it would work. Even when I worked for Pratt & Whitney in the 1970's we had to build and test as the computers then could not do the job of simulating the flow inside combustors. We tested many combustor designs and they were all number and hand labeled like the one in the picture.

That is my best guess. Of course, I could be completely wrong and it was just a fancy ashtray for a general. Who knows?

 

[Enthalpy]

I'd say: these parts are intended to mix hot air from a combustion chamber (flowing inside) with cool diluting air (flowing outside). You see the shape meant to provide the maximum contact area between both fluxes so they mix quickly. Both fluxes would move upwards on the first picture.

I expect it in a normal gas turbine rather than a ramjet. The purpose is to provide an air temperature acceptable by the turbine, while the combustion need a higher temperature to be stable (more kerosene-to-air and slower air motion before adding the full flux).

An other reason, especially at early designs, was to protect the camber walls from heat, using a cold external flux.

From the design, it must be pretty old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combustor

 

[boneh3ad]

I would have to agree with Enthalpy that if it is part of a gas turbine, it is not part of a ramjet. It would seriously impede the functioning of a ramjet due to blockage.