Timothee HEMARD, Bayindir H. SARACOGLU
DOI Number: 10.82241/ceas-hisst-2024-282
Conference number: HiSST-2024-282
Pressure gain combustion (PGC) technology has been heavily investigated by the research community due to its promising theoretical thermal efficiency superiority over constant pressure combustion systems. One of the major implementation of PGC is pulse detonation engines (PDE) whose aeronautical applicability has been proven at the beginning of the millennium. Present research highlighted in this paper aims at investigating the applicability of a PDE with Helmholtz resonator injection system for space thruster applications. In order to investigate the effect of Helmholtz resonator for PDE injection, a thorough numerical study has been performed using the commercial solver Ansys Fluent. Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations were solved over a detailed computation domain of the entire pulse detonation thruster (PDT) using k-w SST closure and Arrhenius rates for detailed chemical reactions of H2 and O2. Unsteady wave motion on in the resonator and the mixer prior to the ignition has been recorded at thirteen probe locations and analysed to understand the efficiency of the system to rapidly achieve detonable mixtures in short distances. The current cold flow analysis showed that a detonable mixture can be achieved promptly while the initial hot flow simulations depicted a distinct combustion zone at the mixing region. The full paper will include a detailed analysis of the reactive flow within the PDT at various injection rates. The unsteady features will be investigated in detail both in time and frequency domain. The propulsive performance of the PDT will be analysed at different operating conditions.