Development and Initial Testing of a Radial Wave Engine

Abstract

Smaller combustion chambers, as well as pressure gain combustion processes, are desired in terms of reducing the space, weight, lowering engine manufacturing costs, and increasing the efficiency and specific power of gas turbine engines. In this paper, a compact single rotor disk pressure gain combustor engine is introduced with interesting merits compared with existing turbine engine designs. The engine introduced as the Radial Wave Engine (RWE) features purely radial-flow resulting in a compact and light weight design with only two moving parts. The core of the engine is a spinning radial combustor in which constant volume combustion occurs using stationary inlet and exit end walls resembling a valved-combustor. Power output is generated via a radial-outflow turbine forming a purely disk-shape engine. The proposed engine is a hybrid engine concept, midways between piston and turbine engines with improvements to other counterpart designs. This paper discusses the engine background, operating principles, instrumentation, high-speed video recording, and initial testing of a prototype proof-of-concept demonstrator. This study is the first step towards a new pressure gain combustion configuration which has not designed or tested before.