April 04, 2023
Graduate Students Bebe Wang, Austin Webb and Rafael Camacho recently tested a CH4/GOx Optically Accessible Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE). This heroic effort was accomplished in a short turn-around time of 2 weeks from air-breathing H2/Air to CH4/GOx operation in collaboration with Spectral Energies LLC. The RDRE provided stable single-wave 5.3 kHz operation at O/F ratio of 4 and the team performed the world's first simultaneous orthogonal MHz OH-PLIF and broadband chemiluminescence in a Rocket RDE. The results are currently being analyzed and will be published in an archival journal in the very near future. These experiments are instrumental for understanding combustion systems operating in supersonic and Hypersonic environments!
Kudos to the team members!
