A Quasi-one-dimensional Analytic Model of Rotating Detonation Combustors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple, fast quasi-one-dimensional analytic model for rotating detonation combustors that accurately predicts performance and gas distributions, validated against CFD simulations.

Contribution

It presents a novel non-iterative, non-discretized analytical model for RDCs that captures key flow characteristics and matches CFD results.

Findings

Model accurately predicts thruster performance.

Good agreement with CFD in gas property distributions.

Model is computationally efficient and maintains RDC fundamentals.

Abstract

A quasi-one-dimensional analytic model is proposed for the internal fluid of rotating detonation combustors (RDCs). This model uses the shock-tube model that constrains the flow to have only a longitudinal component, while admitting the propagation of the detonation wave in the azimuthal direction. The proposed model is able to compute the thruster performance and two-dimensional distributions of gas properties. The calculation process of the model excludes iterative calculation or space discretization. The case calculations of the hydrogen-air RDC and the ethylene-oxygen RDC are conducted, and the results calculated by the analytic model are compared with those simulated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Good agreement has been observed between the results obtained with the proposed model and CFD, in terms of both of the qualitative and quantitative comparisons. The proposed model is simple and fast, and also maintains the fundamental characteristics of RDCs.