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The structure and dynamics of a hydrogen-air rotating detonation engine (RDE) are described based on 100-kHz laser absorption spectroscopy measurements of water temperature at four simultaneous locations within the detonation channel. The analysis focuses on the evolution of the flowfield over a 200 ms period for three separate air mass flow rate cases. Two-dimensional unwrapped visualizations of the temperatures show a flowfield structure containing regions with the detonation front, combustion products, oblique shock, and refilling reactants, qualitatively agreeing with previous simulations and experiments. A major conclusion is that water from the combustion products is measured throughout all space and time in the RDE, including near the injector, implying the presence of performance loss processes such as burning upstream of the detonation wave or the back recirculation of combustion products with fresh fuel–air. By analyzing the elevated temperatures of the reactants during the refill process, one estimation for the mass fraction of combustion products in the reactants is as high as 20–30% on average. This product mass fraction is found to be inversely proportional to the bulk air mass flow rate and decreases as time progresses. This indicates these non-ideal processes are more significant closer to RDE ignition for poorer performing operating conditions. For the largest air mass flow case, water temperatures near the nominally cold plenum conditions likely corroborate the presence of a recirculation region on the RDE inner body. Analysis of inter- and intra-cycle temperature dynamics further support non-ideal processes occurring behind the detonation wave and during the refill process. As a whole, the data indicates that the RDE performance is better as time progresses away from ignition or for higher air mass flow rates. These data are also important for comparison with numerical models. |
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