The Rotating-Detonation-Wave Engine Concept: A Brief Status report

摘要

There is the potential to increase further the substantial performance gains made by the Pulsed-detonation Engine (PDE) concept over the traditional constant-pressure Brayton cycle based propulsion engines by moving from "pulsed" or "intermittent" detonations to a more "continuous" mode of operation with detonations. The concept has been around for more than fifty years but has seen a renewed interest recently following the success enjoyed by the Pulsed-detonation Engine concept. This paper is an attempt to gather the key information presented in previous publications in the open literature and to assess the potential for "rotating detonation wave engines" (RDE), a manifestation of the continuous detonation-wave engine. In addition, current research being conducted at the Naval Research Laboratory is used to highlight the operation and performance of a generic rotating detonation-wave engine. The flow field within the engine is shown to be fairly complicated. However, it follows the "steady-state" thermal detonation cycle quite closely, unlike the PDE. Parametric studies varying the pressure conditions both upstream at the inlet plane and downstream through the back pressure reveal that the overall specific impulse is just a function of the ratio of the inlet stagnation pressure to the chamber back pressure for the generic device considered here. Sources of losses occur when the reactant is burned away from the detonation wave, and also when detonated reactants are forced through both the oblique and secondary shock waves.