Effects of liquid-fuel temperature on rotating-detonation-wave propagation

Abstract

The utilization of liquid fuel will greatly expand the application scope of rotating detonation engines, and there are still great challenges to achieve high-performance liquid-fuel rotating detonation operation. In this paper, aviation kerosene was used as the liquid fuel to investigate the effects of fuel temperature on the propagation characteristics of rotating detonation waves in two combustor structures: annular and cavity. An electric heating tape was employed to heat the kerosene up to 390 K. The results demonstrate that increasing the temperature of kerosene enhances its atomization efficiency, leading to a marked enhancement in the peak pressure and propagation stability of detonation waves. Moreover, the duration required to establish a detonation wave is notably reduced, as low as 11.2 ms. Furthermore, the detonation wave velocity increases with fuel temperature, with significantly higher velocities observed in the cavity combustor structure compared to the annular combustor structure. In the cavity combustor, the detonation wave velocity can reach up to 74 % of the theoretical CJ value. The results verify the feasibility of improving the rotating-detonation performance via increasing liquid-fuel temperature, which can provide reference for the engineering application of rotating detonation.