Changing the flow rate of reactants being injected into a rotating detonation combustor (RDC) results in interesting behavior of the system. Prior studies have found that an increase in mass flow rate gradually increases the detonation wave speed before splitting the wave into multiple fronts. The focus of this study is in understanding the physics of such behavior through a combination of experiments and numerical simulations. For this purpose, the axial air inlet-based RDC geometry is used. In the experiments, the wave velocity increased similar to prior studies. Corresponding full-scale simulations show that increase in mass flow rate by increasing pressure of the feed plenums shortens the recovery time of the injectors. This causes a more uniform fuel–air mixture to form prior to the arrival of the detonation wave. As a result, a more ideal detonation is observed, which leads to an increased wave velocity. Details of the detonation structure and variation with mass flow rate are analyzed. The presence and variation of the different deflagration zones in such non-premixed RDCs are also discussed.

改变注入旋转爆轰燃烧器（RDC）的反应物的流量会导致系统出现有趣的行为。先前的研究发现，质量流率的增加会在将波分裂为多个前沿之前逐渐提高爆震波的速度。这项研究的重点是通过结合实验和数值模拟来理解这种行为的物理原理。为此，使用了基于轴向进气口的RDC几何形状。在实验中，波速增加与以前的研究相似。相应的满量程模拟显示，通过增加进料气室的压力来增加质量流量会缩短喷射器的恢复时间。这会导致在爆炸波到达之前形成更均匀的燃料-空气混合物。因此，观察到更理想的爆炸，这导致波速增加。分析了爆轰结构及其随质量流量变化的细节。还讨论了这种非预混RDC中不同爆燃区的存在和变化。