Prediction of pressure loss in injector for rotating detonation engines using single-element simulations

This paper newly proposes a prediction method for estimation of pressure loss in injector for rotating detonation engines with lower cost calculation. This method is supposed to be used to design new injector shapes. Although the conventional full-scale simulation contains plenum, all injectors, and combustion chamber, the computational domain in the prediction method is limited to single-element of injector, which includes single injector and plenum. The effects of combustion chamber including the detonation propagation are given by the time-evolving boundary conditions at injector outlet. The time-evolving boundary conditions are prepared by the full-scale simulation or theoretical calculation of one cycle in RDE, and mass flow rate is determined for single-element simulations. The single-element simulation consists of two phases. First, a non-reactive steady flow is calculated for new injector shape, which is used as an initial condition. Then, time-evolving profile is periodically applied to injector outlet as a boundary condition. Eventually, plenum pressure converges to appropriate value. In this paper, the single-element simulations are carried out for the rectangle injector and the chamfered injector for validation of the new method. The error of pressure loss prediction is less than 0.6%, which is 50 times faster, in comparison with full-scale simulation.