Visualization of rotating detonation waves in a plane combustor with a cylindrical wall injector

A Rotating Detonation Engine (RDE) has higher thermal efficiency and simpler structure than a conventional gas turbine engine. Therefore, many research institutions has been investigating RDEs. Property of propagation of detonation waves in a RDE, however, has not been fully elucidated yet. Toward the practical use of RDEs, clarifying the propagation characteristics of detonation waves in RDEs is important. In the present study,we fabricated a plane RDE combustor with a cylindrical wall injector and performed visualization experiment. Propagation speed of the combustion waves that was observed in this experiment had reached to about 1300 – 1100 m/s, that is about 55 – 45 % of Chapman Jouguet detonation velocity.