A Contribution to the Development of Actual Continuous Detonation Wave Engine

During past years, MBDA performed some theoretical and experimental works, mainly in cooperation with LCD laboratory at ENSMA Poitiers, on Pulsed Detonation Engine (PDE). These studies aimed at obtaining a preliminary demonstration of the feasibility of the PDE in both rocket and airbreathing modes and at verifying the interest of such a PDE for operational application : rocket and airbreathing mode experimental evaluation, effect of filling coefficient, effect of a nozzle, thermal, mechanical, acoustic and vibrations environment generated, evaluation of different fuels, performance code development. Due to its thermodynamic cycle, the pulsed detonation engine (PDE) has theoretically a higher performance than an other classical propulsion concept using the combustion process (+ 20 to 25% in term of thermal efficiency). Nevertheless, it is necessary to verify that this advantage is not fully compensated by the difficulties, which could be encountered for practical use of the PDE concept or by the complex technology, which could be needed to implement it in an operational flying system. Moreover, a PDE a priori generates a severe vibration environment, which can imply higher more severe requirement for all on-board vehicle equipments or subsystems. After some in house studies performed in national and international cooperation, MBDA is now focusing its efforts to the development of a demonstration engine led in cooperation with Singapourian DSO in order to really assess the feasibility and the interest of this propulsion concept.