Multidisciplinary Study of Pulse Detonation Engines

Research at the Explosion Dynamics Laboratories at Caltech over the past three years under an ONR contract has examined many issues critical to Pulse Detonation Engine (PDE) development. These include: fundamental and applied studies of detonation initiation; detonation cell width measurements to characterize fuels, including JP10; visualization of the reaction zone structure of propagating detonations; direct measurements and analytical modeling of impulse from a detonation tube, including the effects of partial fill and exit geometry; studies of detonation diffraction; and the structural response of tubes to detonation loading, including fracture and failure. Each of these aspects of our program is discussed and key results are presented.