A research group consisting of Professor Jianping Wang and his doctoral student Rui Zhou from the Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering recently published their research on detonation engines in Combustion and Flame (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010218012002088).

Detonation combustion has an inherently higher thermodynamic efficiency than constant-pressure combustion. In recent years, the continuously rotating detonation engine (RDE) based on detonation combustion has been extensively studied. However, so far, there has been little research, by both numerical simulations and experiments, of the thermodynamic performance of continuously rotating detonations. To address this, Wang’s group proposed a new method for analyzing the continuously rotating detonation engines flow-field and describing its thermodynamic properties.

Based on two-dimensional numerical simulation of continuously rotating detonations in an annular chamber, they tracked the paths of flow particles burned by three different processes, and analyzed the results in detail. They found that the detonation wave, the deflagration wave, the oblique shock wave and the contact surface have a small influence on the paths of flow particles. They also found that about 23.6% fuel is burned by deflagration, and the left is burned by rotating detonation wave.

In addition, the team discussed the thermodynamic performance of continuously rotating detonations. They discovered that the p-v and T-s diagrams obtained by numerical simulation are qualitatively consistent with the ideal ZND model. Moreover, the average thermal efficiency of the detonation combustion in 2D RDE is 30.98%, and its average net mechanical work is 1.31MJ/kg. The thermal efficiency of the entire RDE is 26.39%, and its net mechanical work is 30.03% of the ideal ZND model. The superior performance of continuously rotating detonations is determined.

“I believe the particle tracking method that we proposed here will be in wide use for the study of rotating detonation engine in the future.” Wang said.

This project is supported by the Aeronautical Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 2008ZH71006.

Particles paths
 

Comparison of the T-s and p-v diagrams from 1D numerical simulation, 2D numerical simulations, and the ideal ZND model.