Effect of unsteady supersonic flow on detonation under different hot jet initiation conditions

Abstract

To understand the actual operation of detonation engines, it is of great significance to simulate the detonation characteristics after being affected by unsteady supersonic flow. Adaptive mesh refinement method and single-step chemical reaction model were used for simulation calculations. The Navier–Stokes equations and hybrid sixth-order weighted essentially non-oscillatory centered difference scheme was adopted in this study. Three different amplitudes of disturbances (0.1, 0.2, and 0.3) and two hot jet injection times were analyzed. The results showed that a moderate disturbance can improve the stability of detonation wave under the ideal hot jet injection time. It allows detonation wave to stay in the combustion chamber for a longer time, which is beneficial for the release of thrust performance. Although the stability of detonation wave is significantly different between the low and high-amplitude disturbances, the residence time of detonation wave is close to the steady flow case under ideal initiation conditions. When the ignition time is insufficient, successful detonation can occur with low and medium-amplitude disturbances. However, the ignition delay was significantly prolonged with medium-amplitude disturbance. There was also greater instability, which is detrimental to the thrust release. When the inflow has a high-amplitude disturbance, the detonation wave fails to ignite due to insufficient energy.