Experimental investigation on pulse operation characteristics of rotating detonation rocket engine

The pressure-gain rotating detonation rocket engine is expected to develop as an attitude/orbit control power device for high-performance spacecraft. In this paper, the short-time pulse operation characteristics of a rotating detonation rocket engine were investigated experimentally. A rotating detonation combustor with a diameter of 60 mm was employed, and the H2 and oxygen-rich air were separately injected into the combustor to initiate the detonation wave. The results showed that the rotating detonation rocket engine can obtain continuous rotating detonation modes with the pulse operating frequency of 1-5 Hz, and the pulse frequency could not affect the propagation mode and velocity of the detonation wave. During the multi-pulse operation of the rotating detonation rocket engine, the detonation wave could realize continuous propagation at each pulse stage. With the increase of the pulse number, the propagation velocity of the rotating detonation wave tended to increase slightly, and the establishment time gradually decreased. A suitable multi-pulse operation timing of the rotating detonation rocket engine was set in this experiment, and the feasibility of long-duration multi-pulse operation with rotating detonation mode was successfully verified.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the short-time pulse operation characteristics of a rotating detonation rocket engine through experiments. Results show that the engine can achieve continuous rotating detonation modes at pulse operating frequencies of 1-5 Hz, regardless of the pulse frequency's impact on the propagation mode and velocity of the detonation wave. The experiment also successfully verifies the feasibility of long-duration multi-pulse operation with rotating detonation mode.