Research Summaries

Back Evaluation of Injector Manifold Characteristics on the Operation and Performance of Hydrocarbon-Fueled Rotation Detonation Engines

Fiscal Year 2013
Division Graduate School of Engineering & Applied Science
Department Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Investigator(s) Brophy, Christopher M.
Sponsor Naval Air Systems Command (Navy)
Summary The proposed research intends to fundamentally evaluate the engine performance of a Rotating Detonation Engine (RDE) under varying injector characteristics such as mixing performance, total pressure drop, and inlet isolation. This will involve delivering reactants in both ideal (premixed) and non-premixed conditions to determine the experimentally delivered characteristic exhaust velocities and compare to the unique theoretical predictions for this mode of detonation-based combustion. The continued development of an optically-accessible RDE will permit imaging of flow field features and will improve the understanding of the mixing implications on RDE operation and performance. Corrected efficiency parameters such as characteristic exhaust velocities and specific impulse will be directly measured and compared to predicted values as well as those for existing combustion devices operating on conventional thermodynamic cycles. Many computational studies have been performed in the literature which assumed a well-mixed condition across an injector manifold for these devices, often at the expense of possessing a large total pressure loss for the reactants, yet only a relatively small amount of effort has been directed at establishing an understanding of non-premixed performance implications. Direct observation of the detonation wave structure/stability near the injector plate, will permit wave stability to be evaluated under actual geometry constraints on the flow field. It is expected that some interaction with other groups pursuing simulations of similar conditions will occur, thus providing additional insight into the flow field physics responsible for the measured results. As this work proceeds, an additional objective of this work will look at the application and system integration benefits of an RDE system to help meet the goals of the Sea-Based Aviation Propulsion NNR on the topic of highly efficient, advanced cycle development. The predicted thermodynamic improvements appear to have multiple technology development paths, some of which will be analyzed in terms of application, practicality, and risk.
Keywords
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