Combustors that drive propulsion systems are often volumetric in nature, typically in the form of cylinders, and convert chemical to thermal and mechanical energy through oxidation of fuels. This deflagrating combustion approach is now beginning to be challenged by detonation-based combustion that utilizes shock waves to accelerate the oxidation of fuel-air mixture.
This technology, originally studied at the University of Michigan in the 1960s and '70s, is seeing a resurgence due to its unique characteristics that have found application in everything from power generation to hypersonic flight.
University of Michigan researchers, led by Michael Ullman, a graduate research assistant in the Aerospace Engineering department and Venkat Raman, a professor in the same department, along with collaborators at Purdue University and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), have studied a new form factor for such detonation-driven propulsion, allowing a linear array of injectors to sustain fast moving shock waves in a rectangular domain. It is the first time a linear combustor has been studied computationally at this level of detail, which has revealed the causal mechanism for detonation stabilization.
The research is published in the journal Combustion and Flame.
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