Effect of operation frequency on pulse detonation engine performance

Using gasoline as fuel and air as oxidizer, we studied experimentally the effect of operation frequency on pulse detonation engine (PDE) performance in order to analyze the factors that influence the operation frequency of the PDE prototype. We succeeded in obtaining the equivalence ratio ranges of stable operation for different operation frequencies. We measured the detonation pressure, transient thrust and detonation velocity of the PDE prototype at different operation frequencies and different equivalence ratios. Figs.2 through 7 in the full paper show the shapes of detonation waves at different detonation frequencies; Figs.8 and 9 display respectively the equivalence ratios of stable operation and average thrusts at different detonation frequencies; Table 1 presents the thrusts and wave speeds at different detonation frequencies. The experimental results indicate: the stable operation range is wide when the detonation frequency is low, the measured detonation wave pressure and detonation velocity are close to the theoretical values of stable and fully-developed detonation wave, and the average thrust of PDE increases almost linearly with its operation frequency; but the stable operation range becomes smaller when the detonation frequency gets higher progressively. However, the detonation strength decreases with increasing detonation frequency.