Equivalent Available Pressure Measurements on a Laboratory RDE

Abstract

The ability to measure pressure gain is a crucial step in the development of pressure gain combustion devices. A method for measuring the pressure gain achieved by a rotating detonation engine has recently been proposed. The goal of this method is to determine the equivalent available pressure. The equivalent available pressure allows for a comparison of the work or thrust potential between unsteady, pressure gain devices and steady, constant pressure ones. With this known, it is possible to measure the pressure gain across a rotating detonation engine. This measurement is made on a rotating detonation engine at the Detonation Engine Research Facility at the Air Force Research Laboratory. This engine design has been published along with experimental data relating to its operation and is commonly used in numerical simulations. This work demonstrates the equivalent available pressure measurement and calculation for the experimental community and provides data for the modeling community so that they may compare to the experiment.