Advances in Automobile Engineering
Open Access

Pulse Detonation Engine

The Pulse Detonation Engine (PDE) is an experimental propulsive device that uses supersonic detonation waves as a combustion mechanism. In theory, the PDE design offers numerous advantages over traditional gas turbine engines, including improved efficiency and reduced mechanical complexity.  However, PDE designs must overcome significant hurdles in order to become a viable and efficient form of propulsion, and research into PDE designs, engineering properties and potential is ongoing.Pulse Detonation Engines are the supersonic relatives of pulse-jet engines. Pulse- jets rely on intermittent, subsonic deflagration flames in a long tube to burn an injected fuel- oxidizer mixture.  Pulse-jets were thrust on the world stage during World War II, as the propulsion system of the Nazi V-1 bomb. Deflagration flames propagate rather slowly, and their combustion can be modeled as a constant pressure process.  As a result, the performance of pulse- jet engines is limited by the slow flame speed. Detonation waves, a supersonic phenomenon, propagate at speeds in the thousands of meters per second, and can therefore be modeled as a constant volume process.  Serious research into detonation propulsion systems began in the 1950s, when researchers at the University of Michigan published a series of papers on detonation waves.  The novel idea of intermittent detonation gained traction in the 1980s as the Naval Postgraduate School investigated the design further. However, experimental work encountered a number of challenges, namely the difficulty with transitioning a subsonic deflagration wave (a flame) into a supersonic detonation wave, as well as properly mixing the fuel and oxidizer to produce a uniform detonation. More recently, the PDE concept has continued to garner academic research interest, and investigators approach PDE research from a variety of backgrounds, including computational fluid dynamics, experimental thermodynamics, as well as laser diagnostics.