Experimental investigations on the power extraction of a turbine driven by a pulse detonation combustor

In order to grasp the interaction mechanism between the pulse detonation combustor (PDC) and the turbine, the experimental work in this paper investigates the key factors on the power extraction of a turbocharger turbine driven by a PDC. A PDC consisting of an unvalved tube is integrated with a turbocharger turbine which has a nominal mass flow rate of 0.6 kg/s and 50000 r/min. The PDC–turbine hybrid engine is operated on gasoline-air mixtures and runs for 6⁺ min to achieve a thermal steady state, and then the engine performance is evaluated under different operating conditions. Results show that the momentum difference per unit area between the turbine inlet and outlet plays an important role in the power extraction, while the pressure peak of the detonation has little effect. The equivalence ratio of fuel and air mixture and the transition structure between PDC and turbine are also important to the power extraction of the turbine. The present work is promising as it suggests that the performance benefit of a PDC–turbine hybrid engine can be realized by increasing the momentum difference per unit area through the optimal design of transition section between the PDC and turbine.