Pulse Detonation Engine Detonation Numerical Simulation And Nozzle Performance Analysis

As a new concept propulsion system, pulse detonation engines (PDE) show many advantages compared to other conventional propulsion systems. During the last decades, PDE has been extensively studied by many research groups all over the world. So far, much of the research has focused on understanding the fundamentals and the application of PDEs. Numerical investigation has been carried out in the paper to gain an insight into the phenomenon of detonation and the performance of nozzles.The present paper involves two parts:Firstly, detailed chemistry and AMR technology have been utilized to run the simulation of stoichiometric hydrogen-air mixture detonation under the initial condition with pressure 1 arm and temperature 300K. Unique, detailed and regular flow structures in the flow field of detonation have been obtained. The formation, characteristic and the interaction of triple points have been further analyzed. The formation of self-sustained detonation is also illustrated.Secondly, a numerical simulation of nozzles, including diverging nozzle, converging nozzle, straight nozzle and converging-diverging nozzle, has been performed and the blow-down processes have been analyzed under the same initial condition. The total impulse, I_spf, thrust generated and the blow-down time have also been analyzed with different shapes of nozzle. The results show that nozzle can improve the performance of PDE. Of all the nozzles, the diverging nozzle is the best in performance under the same condition.At last, the final part of the paper summarizes the present work and draws conclusions, and then gives the recommendation for further research.