Investigations of Transient Thermal Response of Pulse Detonation Engine Tube under Sequential Operation

The practical and prolonged implementation of pulse detonation engines implies the control of temperature in detonation tubes. The nature of the detonation itself, plus the rapid repetition of different processes within the working cycle, are accompanied by variations of speed, temperature and pressure and create a heating environment which is different from conventional engines and difficult to specify and control. In this paper the various processes of the working cycle are studied and a template is proposed for the loading and thermal boundary conditions. In continuation, the analytical and thermal models have been developed based on the described assumptions and the thermal responses have been obtained for sequential loadings. The severe thermal gradients in the tube wall and the short duration of each detonation can cause high sensitivity of the response to solution parameters and affect the solution convergence. The validation and verification of the results have been carried out through comparisons of the analytical and numerical results with the experimental results reported in the literature. The obtained results not only provide the thermal condition for control design, but also give the required data for other related aspects of pulse detonation engine, like thermoelastic and thermal fatigue analyses.