Experimental study on the feasibility of detonation as the combustion mode for internal combustion engine

Abstract

An experimental study has been done in order to study the feasibility of detonation as combustion mode in internal combustion engine. The objective of this study is to study the feasibility of this idea. The detonation tube was running with propane as fuel and air as oxidizer and it was a single detonation process. The experiment is divided into two parts, first is without piston attached at the end of the detonation tube in order to ensure detonation can be successfully generated using developed detonation tube as well as fuel and oxidizer. Second part is where piston is attached at the end of the detonation tube. Pressure profile as well as force exerted onto the piston is recorded using pressure transducer and load cell respectively. By using Chemical Equilibrium with Application (CEA) software, detonation of propane by using air as oxidizer will give pressure of 18.950 bar and 1834.1 m/s of velocity for burned gas. From experiment, burned gas pressure and velocity are 8 bar and 1736 m/s respectively when no piston was attached to the end of the detonation tube as well as 9 bar and 1645 m/s respectively when piston was attached at the end of the detonation tube. Detonation as combustion mode in internal combustion engine is not feasible due to high rise in pressure in very short period of time that will give knock effect to the engine as well as DDT section that will take huge amount of space thus defeat the purpose of producing small yet powerful engine.