Evaluation of Techniques for Calculating RDEs

There seems to be no consensus currently as to the best numerical, turbulence, and combustion models to use for the numerical simulation of the Rotating Detonation Engine (RDE). For example, Oran’s group has proposed very simplified ways of handling combustion, whereas a few others have advocated the use of more complicated kinetic mechanisms in order to capture essential aspects of RDE combustion. The present study compares the performance of different kinetic mechanisms. Furthermore, whereas most studies have limited their models to the laminar case, there has been a recent suggestion that the presence of turbulence might explain the observed reduction in detonation speeds from simulations, relative to the CJ values. Romick et al.* have demonstrated the significance of using Navier-Stokes (NS) models, as opposed to the more prevalent Euler models, in an attempt to capture some physically-important phenomenon in RDE. However, these authors also require that the physical viscosity in Navier-Stokes be significantly greater than the numerical viscosity. The use of turbulence modeling and the required amount of numerical viscosity in the sense of Romick and his co-workers are investigated in this work.

*Romick et al., Journal of Fluid Mechanics. (2012), vol. 699, pp. 453-464.