Our world consumes more and more energy each year. Just in 2022 that was 180,000 terawatt hours of energy – it is equivalent of 6 liters of oil used by every human being on our planet each day. This high energy consumption results in serious global problems regarding international security, economic instability, pollution and climate change.
How to improve combustion? Numbers!
Gas turbines constitute an astonishing 14% of that energy consumption so we have to realize that a mere 1% of thermodynamic improvement makes a huge impact!
Imagine there was a technology that could make a 5% improvement and what about 10%?
Well, there is a technology that could potentially make a 15% of improvement in thermodynamic efficiency.
RDE – a new hope
Combustion has always has been the most important process of releasing and transforming energy., whether we talk about electricity generation, transportation or space exploration.
What engine is strive for is a combustion at high pressure. In combustion engines we try to compress the air first and only then ignite the fuel. With this approach we achieve higher combustion efficiency – that is we get more energy from the same amount of fuel. However, current technologies have reached the end of their capabilities. Increasing pressure costs too much and on top of that, it promotes toxic nitrogen oxide emissions.
This is why here in the Łukasiewicz – Institute of Aviation we are working on the process of pressure gain combustion used in the forthcoming “game changer”.
Rotating detonation engines, briefly called RDE.
What is a rotating detonation?
When we think of detonation we imagine a powerful and dangerous phenomenon with shock waves traveling with tremendous speed, burning and destroying everything on its way. But we are working on harnessing this extraordinary phenomenon.
If we introduce the oxidizer and fuel into combustion chamber in a proper way we can obtain self-driven rotating detonation combustion process.
What are the advantages of rotating detonation engines?
- Combustion at elevated pressure.
- Detonation is thousand times faster than traditional combustion.
- Hydrogen. The fuel of the future is perfectly suited for rotating detonation engines.
For hypersonics the future of flight is finally possible due to RDE.
We are constantly working to develop this new technology but there are still some challenges regarding RDE: measuring, heat transfer, vibrations and noise. RDE is an early technology, however, we achieved a few significant steps forward in the development of such combustors.
Rotating detonation in aerospace
When it comes to space exploration imagine a rocket engine with a rotating detonation wave inside. Sounds like a distant future? Not really. We have launched the first RDE powered rocket just a few years ago. For us this is only the beginning.
In aviation currently kerosene is the most common fuel used there. However, liquids are pretty inconvenient for detonation but we put some effort and managed to initiate and sustain stable detonation in the mixture of air and liquid kerosene.
Right now we are pretty advanced in the development of an engine that could thrust an aircraft traveling with twice the speed of sound.
Michał Kawalec, PhD Eng. – expert in rotating detonation engine
Maksymilian Augustyn, Eng. – expert in rotating detonation engine
