DETERMINATION OF EFFECTIVE AVAILABLE PRESSURE OF A ROTATING DETONATION ENGINE

Abstract

Rotating detonation engines (RDEs) offer improved efficiency over conventional ramjet engines due to their decreased combustion chamber size and increased pressure gain across the combustor; however, due to highly transient temperature and pressure conditions generated by the detonation wave, conventional total pressure diagnostics cannot resolve or survive the combustor flow field. A theoretical method of producing an effective available pressure (EAP), or time averaged total pressure capable of producing work, in an RDE was introduced by Kaemming and Paxson but was not experimentally tested. The objective of this thesis was to experimentally measure the EAP for an RDE for various exit area and inlet area conditions. A bluff body nozzle was designed and implemented to determine the base pressure drag created by the engine. This force was used in conjunction with the overall thrust to calculate the momentum thrust of the combustor. Utilizing steady state equations, the effective total chamber pressure was then calculated and compared to prior computational results. Results appear to capture the trends observed in the modeling but show deficits due to non-ideal mixing, incomplete combustion, and heat transfer. By closing this loop, a normalized metric to compare RDE efficiencies experimentally was implemented.