Experimental investigation on noise radiation characteristics of pulse detonation engine–driven ejector

Abstract

The noise radiation characteristics of multi-cycle pulse detonation engine with and without ejector were investigated under different operating frequencies utilizing gasoline as fuel and air as oxidizer. The straight cylindrical ejector with convergent inlet geometry was coaxially installed at different axial locations relative to the exit of the detonation tube. In all the experiments, the equivalence ratios of gasoline–air mixture and the fill fraction were 1.2 and 1.0, respectively. The experimental results implied that the addition of ejector could drastically change the far-field acoustic performance of pulse detonation engine exit and the peak sound pressure level of noise radiation was a strong function of the ejector axial position. But the peak sound pressure level was not sensitive to the operating frequencies which varied from 10 to 25 Hz. The pulse sound pressure level, however, increased with the increase in operating frequencies. The far-field jet-noise measurements of the pulse detonation engine-ejector system also showed that ejector could decrease the peak sound pressure level of pulse detonation engine. The maximum reduction was approximately 8.5 dB. For the current pulse detonation engine test conditions, an optimum ejector position was found to be a downstream axial placement of x / D PDE = 0.5.