The circumferential force on a cylindrical rotating detonation engine

Rotating detonation engines (RDEs) utilize single or multiple detonation waves continuously traveling at velocities ranging from 1 to 3 km/s. These waves induce a strong swirl near the inlet surface, generating circumferential shear stress on the surface of the combustion chamber. This stress works as torque in the axial direction. This characteristic is promising for turbine applications. However, for long-term operation, such applications require reduction in the thermal damage risk. While annular RDEs, which have an inner wall surface, involve the thermally independent center body, cylindrical RDEs have no center body and more suitable. On the other hand, the contact surface exposed to the swirling flow is smaller. This study evaluated the differences in combustion mode and circumferential phenomena between annular and cylindrical RDEs through the measurement of thrust and torque. The results showed that the torque generated by the cylindrical RDE was as large (around 0.1 Nm) as that generated by the annular RDE under mass flow rate of approximately 0.05 kg/s. This was due to the stronger swirl derived from the 16 % faster detonation waves. In addition, the presence of strong detonation combustion around the outer wall of the cylindrical RDE was indicated through the control surface method. When a fuel‒oxidizer was supplied to the strong detonation combustion region, the detonation waves reached velocities around the Chapman–Jouguet value, with the maximum torque in this study being 0.127 Nm. From these results, the effect of the propagation mode of detonation waves on the circumferential flow and force was evaluated. The results indicated that the increase of detonation wave velocity enhanced the circumferential flow and force. The tendency to increase became large as the number of the detonation waves increased.