The effects of multiple detonation waves in the RDE flow field

Rotating detonation engines (RDE) promise a highly efficient future combustion process due to elevated temperature and pressure attained at high frequencies. Variety of the studies in the literature are devoted to understand the physics of detonation in RDE with combustion across single wave. The current study investigates the effects of multiple detonation waves through numerical simulations performed with an open source unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes solver, OpenFoam. The solver used was able to capture deflagration-to-detonation transition of the hydrogen-air mixture with a devoted tool called ddtFoam. To observe the effects of multiple detonation waves, a flow field with two shocks was implemented. Different inlet total pressures were applied to observe the effect of the inlet pressure on downstream flow field. Comparison in terms of Mach number, outlet flow angle, thrust force, total pressure and temperature had done for one shock and two shocks cases at baseline conditions.