Effects of Isothermal Wall Boundary Conditions on Rotating Detonation Engine

ABSTRACT

Three-dimensional numerical simulations of rotating detonation engines (RDEs) are reported with stoichiometric hydrogen/air mixtures using Navier-Stokes equations with non-slip walls. The effects of isothermal wall boundary conditions at 300 K, 600 K and 900 K are investigated and further compared with the simulation under adiabatic walls. With isothermal walls of 300 K, axial detonation is formed, which further leads to the quenching of detonation. With 600 K isothermal walls, the detonation wave has a similar stably propagating process as adiabatic walls. However, due to the wall heat loss, a lower detonation velocity is obtained in the simulation with isothermal walls. With 900 K isothermal walls, it is found that detonation quenches at first due to the high temperature of the walls, then re-initiates as a result of the collisions of shock waves. In addition, the temperature and heat flux distributions in the outer wall are analyzed. Both the peak temperature and heat flux are found to appear at the detonation wavefront. The averaged heat flux in the detonation region is about three times of the averaged heat flux evaluated in the outer wall. Moreover, the averaged temperature and heat flux remain nearly unchanged in the post-detonation region. Our results are in agreement with experimental studies and provide some insights for RDE thermal management.

KEYWORDS:

• Rotating detonation engine
• isothermal walls
• propulsion
• heat flux

Additional information

Funding

This paper is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 91741202) and State Key Laboratory of High Temperature Gas Dynamics (LHD2017KF03).