Laser-Initiated Conical Detonation Wave for Supersonic Combustion — A Review

Abstract

High-speed air-breathing combustion systems necessitate the release of chemical energy during the relatively brief residence time of reactants within a combustor of practical length. We explore an alternative to the mixing-controlled burning (supersonic diffusion flames) on which the scramjet is usually predicated.Explicitly, we examine the concept of a supersonic combustor based on a nonintrusively stabilized oblique (conical) detonation wave. The conical wave is the resultant of the interaction of a train of spherical detonation waves. Each spherical wave is initiated (in a very-fast-flowing gaseous fuel/air mixture) by energy deposition, at a fixed site relative to the combustor, from a rapidly repeated, periodically pulsed laser. We note that trace-level additives may be required for efficiently sensitizing the gaseous reactive mixture to the incident laser radiation; in fact, judiciously selected sensitizers also may dissociate to form radicals that promote the chemical reaction. We address, expenmentally and analytically, the current status and the remaining agenda for demonstrating proof-of-principle technology for such a supersonic combustor.KeywordsDetonation WaveEnergy DepositionEquivalence RatioGaseous DetonationSupersonic CombustionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.