The Design and Validation of a Pulse Detonation Engine Facility with and without Axial Turbine Integration

Abstract

A new air-breathing ethylene-burning Pulse Detonation Engine (PDE) facility has been constructed at the University of Cincinnati (UC). This facility supports up to six twoinch or three-inch detonation tubes driven by an automotive-derived valving and ignition system and Shchelkin-type spirals for deflagration to detonation transition (DDT). The new PDE is also mated to an axial-flow power turbine with each PDE tube supplying a one-sixth sector of the turbine inlet so that turbine efficiency may be studied under the partial admission and pulsing flow or detonating flow that the PDEs subject it to. The interface between each PDE and its inlet sector is closely coupled in order to maximize the effects of pulsation and partial admission. This paper documents the particular details of this new facility, provides sample data for a few representative cases and provides enough information on the system’s geometry and initial conditions to support numerical simulation of its operation. The presented sample data should allow validation of these numerical simulations.