Thrust Performance of an Ideal Pulse Detonation Engine

Quasi‐steady and two‐dimensional unsteady formulations of the problem on the operation cycle of a pulse detonation engine are derived. A formula for the specific impulse is obtained, and the thrust performance of the engine is calculated. It is found that the thrust performance of this engine for flight Mach numbers M ∈ [0; 3.6] and compression ratios p2/p1 ∈ [1; 80] are always higher than those of the ramjet and one‐spool turbojet. As the compression ratio increases, the advantage of the pulse detonation engine becomes less noticeable.