Experimental research on the rotating detonation in gaseous fuels–oxygen mixtures

Abstract

An experimental study on rotating detonation is presented in this paper. The study was focused on the possibility of using rotating detonation in a rocket engine. The research was divided into two parts: the first part was devoted to obtaining the initiation of rotating detonation in fueloxygen mixture; the second was aimed at determination of the range of propagation stability as a function of chamber pressure, composition, and geometry. Additionally, thrust and specific impulse were determined in the latter stage. In the paper, only rich mixture is described, because using such a composition in rocket combustion chambers maximizes the specific impulse and thrust. In the experiments, two kinds of geometry were examined: cylindrical and cylindricalconic, the latter can be simulated by a simple aerospike nozzle. Methane, ethane, and propane were used as fuel. The pressure-time courses in the manifolds and in the chamber are presented. The thrust-time profile and detonation velocity calculated from measured pressure peaks are shown. To confirm the performance of a rocket engine with rotating detonation as a high energy gas generator, a model of a simple engine was designed, built, and tested. In the tests, the model of the engine was connected to the dump tank. This solution enables different environmental conditions from a range of flight from 16 km altitude to sea level to be simulated. The obtained specific impulse for pressure in the chamber of max.

Propagation of gaseous detonation waves in a spatially inhomogeneous reactive medium

“…The scenario with reactive layers resembles the RDE design where detonable gases are axially injected into the annular combustion chamber such as those studied in Refs. [27][28][29]; the RDEs with impinging injection of non-premixed fuel and oxidizer [30][31][32] can be conceptualized as the scenario with discrete reactive squares. The key finding of this current work may explain the 5% super-CJ detonation velocity recently reported by Fujii et al [28] for the numerical simulations of a detonation wave propagating in a RDE combustion chamber with relatively widely spaced, premixed gas injection.…”

Numerical simulation of a Rotating Detonation with a realistic injector designed for separate supply of gaseous hydrogen and oxygen

“…A large amount of experimental work has been carried out with the objective to clearly identify these issues and prepare technological solu-10 tions. Different types of fuel and fuel-oxidizer mixtures have been tested, see for example [7,8,9,10,11]. In a first step, the rotating detonation is often studied in small combustion chambers but demonstration chambers are now in development or testing [12].…”

Airbreathing Rotating Detonation Wave Engine Cycle Analysis

“…Recent computational efforts have shown that stable RDE combustor flow can be realized with high efficiency [15,29,34,41]. Experimental studies have demonstrated that it can be operated for a wide variety of fuels and injection conditions [5,7,19]. Despite these achievements, engine tests are limited to a few seconds or less while factors like heating, injector dynamics, mixing, detonation-turbulence interaction [24], and the effects of curved channels [25] are topics of current investigation.…”

“…The rise in pressure from the detonation wave temporarily shuts off a portion of the injector orifices, but refueling begins when the pressure behind the wave reduces below that of the plenum chamber. Experiments by Canteins and Kindracki et al have shown that these orifice arrays can be substituted with narrow slits [7,19]. Zhdan has shown in a computational model that the rotating detonation wave can be stabilized for incoming supersonic reactant flow [42].…”