Experimental study on spiral pulse detonation engines

The deflagration to detonation transition (DDT) distance is long for current straight hydrocarbon-air pulse detonation chamber (PDC) which makes the engine not short enough for its engineering application. The experimental research presented in this paper focused on the solution of this problem. At first, the flow resistance experiments of 8 different spiral detonation tubes and one straight tube were performed, and the relationship between spiral geometry parameters and flow resistance was concluded. According to the conclusion, the detonation experiment was conducted using 4 spiral tubes in the resistance experiments. The detonation experiment results showed that all the selected tubes could obtain fully developed detonation waves, and the DDT time was reduced with the increasing of spiral chamber curvature. Compared with the straight tube, the DDT time and distance were decreased by 0.415~0.589 ms and 0.35 m respectively, and the chamber axis length was shorten by 0.78~1.28 m in the spiral chambers.