combustors are dump combustors rather than a more conventional type. Dump combustors inject fuel and rely on recirculation generated by a large change in area in the combustor (rather than swirlers in many gas turbine combustors). That said, many ramjet combustors are also similar to traditional gas turbine combustors, such as the combustor in the ramjet used by the RIM-8 Talos missile, which used a can-type combustor. Scramjets Scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) engines present a much different situation for the combustor than conventional gas turbine engines (scramjets are not gas turbines, as they generally have few or no moving parts). While scramjet combustors may be physically quite different from conventional combustors, they face many of the same design challenges, like fuel mixing and flame holding. However, as its name implies, a scramjet combustor must address these challenges in a supersonic flow environment. For example, for a scramjet flying at Mach 5, the air flow entering the combustor would nominally be Mach 2. One of the major challenges in a scramjet engine is preventing shock waves generated by combustor from traveling upstream into the inlet. If that were to happen, the engine may unstart, resulting in loss of thrust, among other problems. To prevent this, scramjet engines tend to have an isolator section (see image) immediately ahead of the combustion zone. Notes References Notes Bibliography Combustion chambers Jet engine technology Jet engines