Experimental investigation of a shock divider for enhancing turbine performance under pulse detonation gas impact

Abstract To mitigate turbine performance degradation caused by the highly pulsating exhaust from a pulse detonation combustor (PDC) in pulse detonation turbine engines, a shock divider was employed in this study to regulate the detonation gas. An asymmetric dual-channel shock divider was designed and manufactured, and a coupled experimental test platform consisting of the PDC, the shock divider, and a turbocharger was established. Comparative experiments with and without the shock divider were conducted over a PDC operating frequency range of 10 Hz–30 Hz. The experimental results indicate that the shock divider can effectively reduce the pressure pulsation amplitude of the pulse detonation gas, thereby enabling stable coupled operation of the three components across the entire range of operating conditions. Furthermore, the shock divider can enhance the turbine rotational speed, output power, and efficiency under all operating conditions. Specifically, the relative increase in turbine power reaches up to 58.1 %, and the absolute increase in turbine efficiency reaches up to 13.7 %, with the optimal enhancement effect observed at 20 Hz. The findings of this study demonstrate that the shock divider is an effective approach to improving turbine performance under pulse detonation gas impact.