Investigation of the effect of injection configuration oncombustion in rotating detonation engines using computational fluid dynamics

In rotating detonation engines, also called pressure gain engines, thrust is produced by creating and propagating a detonation wave. In this thesis study, the structure of the detonation wave, the physics of its propagation, and the effects of injector configurations on the structure and propagation of the detonation wave were numerically examined. In numerical studies using a density-based solver, reaction rates were calculated with single-step and detailed hydrogen-air chemical reaction mechanisms. It has been determined that numerical study requirements can be significantly reduced with the adaptive mesh technique used in validation studies. In numerical studies of instantaneously changes in the injector total pressure, detonation wave stability was achieved again with increased the injector total pressure two times. In studies where the total injector pressure was increased three and four times, it was determined that the detonation wave could not reach a stable structure again. In cold flow simulations, it was determined that the mixing efficiency in the detonation channel increased as the injector spacing decreased. After full-scale numerical studies, the stable detonation wave propagation was achieved with the modeled injector configurations and it was determined that the rotating detonation engine produced thrust in two-detonation wave mode.