Detonation Transition Around Cylindrical Reflector of Pulse Detonation Engine Initiator

Abstract

To achieve reliable transmission of detonation waves to a pulse detonation engine combustor (detonation chamber), the authors propose a pulse detonation engine initiator that uses a cylindrical reflector downstream of a predetonator exit. The detonation wave propagates around the reflector to change the wave shape in three transition stages: from a planar detonation wave in the predetonator to an expanding cylindrical detonation wave, from the cylindrical wave to a planar toroidal detonation wave, and from the toroidal wave to a planar detonation wave in the detonation chamber. The cylindrical wave propagates along a cylindrical path between the reflector and front wall of the detonation chamber, and the toroidal wave propagates along an annular path between the reflector and sidewall of the detonation chamber. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the gap width of the annular path on the transition stages from cylindrical to toroidal and from toroidal to planar. A series of experiments that filled the entire test section with the driver gas mixture (stoichiometric hydrogen–oxygen mixture) showed that the expanding cylindrical detonation wave was sufficiently strong to survive the rarefaction waves from the corners of the reflector at all of the investigated annular gap widths (5, 10, 15, and 20 mm) and was transmitted to the planar toroidal wave successfully in all cases. When the strength of the cylindrical detonation wave was under a supercritical condition for diffraction at the reflector corner, the necessary filling distance for the driver gas was predicted well by the Whitham theory. A second series of experiments showed the influence of the annular gap width on the detonation transition from the planar toroidal detonation wave to the planar detonation wave. Two different types of detonation transitions termed “continuous transition” and “temporal quenching” were observed. The threshold value of for continuous transition is approximately four.