Design and operation of a test-platform for high-speed combustion studies

This article reports on the design and operations, safety measures taken, as well as preliminary experimental results associated with a highly modular test-platform dedicated towards the study of high-speed combustion events. The test-platform was designed to be capable of controlling the overall system operations associated with and acquiring various experimental quantities simultaneously during cyclical combustion experiments. Preliminary cyclical combustion testing at 25 Hz using equivalence ratio of 1.5 non-premixed ethylene and oxygen mixtures demonstrated good repeatability and reliability of system operations. Dynamic pressure transducer measurements of a typical combustion event show that peak pressure levels ranged from 40 to 60 bar and time-of-flight velocity was as high as 2571 m/s. Compared with the estimated Chapman-Jouguet pressure and velocity for the mixture, they demonstrate that successful detonation events had been produced and captured by the test-platform. In addition, results also show that significantly higher pressure levels were produced at the upstream closed-end of the test-rig and deduced to be caused by interactions between the resulting overdriven detonations and compression waves.