Experimental studies on rotary valves for single-tube pulse detonation rocket engines

Abstract

Two types of rotary valve were designed and fabricated for single-tube pulse detonation rocket engines. According to their driving components, they were named as gear-driven and cam-driven rotary valve, respectively. Preliminary experimental investigations were carried out to test their feasibility for supply of the single-tube pulse detonation rocket engine. Based on the gear-driven rotary valve, the single-tube pulse detonation rocket engine operated at 10 Hz stably. When operating frequency was increased to 15 Hz, inconsecutive detonations happened which was due to signal output block in the encoder. It was found that optimal ignition timing needed to be adjusted to obtain stable operation in the gear-driven rotary-valved pulse detonation rocket engine. Discussion on this was conducted. Operations of the cam-driven rotary-valved pulse detonation rocket engine were also performed. Fully developed and successive detonations at 40 Hz were successfully obtained although an explosion happened in initial tests. Experimental results showed that these two types of rotary valve were able to realize supply control of single-tube pulse detonation rocket engines effectively.