Experimental study of a hydrogen-air rotating detonation engine with variable air-inlet slot

Abstract Rotating detonation engines have attracted considerable attentions in recent years. In this study, the experiments of initiating rotating detonation waves were performed on a H 2 /air rotating detonation wave with the variable air-inlet slot. The results showed that the stability of detonation-wave pressure and velocity both initially increased and then decreased with the increase of slot width, and it could improve the stability of detonation-wave velocity via increasing the equivalence ratio. The intensity of reflected wave was strong for the tests of d  = 0.5 mm, which leaded to the advance ignition of fresh mixture and a velocity deficit reaching up to 20%. The strong interaction between air plenum and combustor and bad mixing effect may be the reasons of forming unstable detonation wave for the tests of large-scale slots. The air-inlet slot of d  = 1 mm, which got a best experiment results relative to other tests, had a wide equivalence-ratio scope to produce stable detonation wave.