GUY NORRIS / LOS ANGELES
Configuration for demonstrator to be decided by 2003 as air-breathing powerplant runs in laboratory environment
General Electric has begun running a pulse detonation engine (PDE) in its experimental Global Research Center laboratories in Niskayuna, New York. It plans to fire up a full-scale demonstrator as early as 2005.
"We have one engine running and producing thrust in a lab environment," says GE advanced engine programmes general manager Mike Benzakein. "It is going to take a lot of work, but the potential is terrific," he adds. The PDE concept, although rumoured to have been developed for classified US defence programmes, has yet to be proven as a viable propulsion option for applications such as missiles, manned and unmanned aircraft.
The PDE is an air-breathing jet engine with no moving parts and the potential to operate from zero to Mach 4. Combustion takes place in an open-ended tube in which fuel is mixed with air and detonated. As the detonation wave travels down the tube at supersonic speed, it draws in fresh fuel and air and the cycle is repeated. Each pulse lasts only milliseconds.
"We're looking at it for many different types of installations. On a turbofan, for example, it could replace the core," says Benzakein.
Initial studies are of a "fundamental" nature, he adds, and are aimed at a valveless design focused on achieving low-frequency operations as close as possible to the 2,000Hz range deemed acceptable by previous study groups.
The work at GE's Global Research Center follows several years of interest in the concept. Aside from ongoing GE participation in NASA-led PDE studies, the company has sponsored US Naval Postgraduate study work and participated in 2000 in a PDE fact-finding mission to Russia.
With NASA and the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, GE plans to decide on the configuration for a demonstrator by 2003. Design work and early component tests in 2003-04 could lead to first runs in 2005-06. Given the 30-50% potential fuel savings offered, one of the earliest applications under study is a PDE-based afterburner to augment military turbofans.
Source: Flight International
