NEW Aerospace ENGINE Destroys ROCKETS

An RDE is theoretically more efficient than conventional deflagrative combustion by as much as 25%. The concept has been known for some time but is finally making progress due to new materials/modeling.

Sources & Credits:
ICE

Pulse Detonation

RDE

[gordonwalter]

It would be good for you to take us one level further/deeper. a) materials b)fluid dynamics c)logic/computer control d) instability sources of continuous D

[justanotherperson]

Also interesting to see that Aerospike-type nozzle is being tested alongside! As an Engineer who loves CFD and Aerospike, I would love to see what the future holds!

[mxracer]

RDE looks like it oculd be the next step in Aerospace engines. Computational fluid dynamics, as my favorite Physics prof at the U of A used to say, don't forget to carry the one.

[robertviragh]

Great video! I just learned about this for the first time, but this short video really covers all the bases regarding limitations of the pulse detonation approach (shock wave noise and vibration), along with the possibility space for future developments (AI-developed materials for continuous pulse detonation commercialization; rotary detonation, essentially a continuous series of timed detonations). Mach 5 is a nice dream but the materials to support that using pulsed detonation still need to be invented!

[Rocket_scientist_]

I’m a little late to see this… but I have some experience working on/with linear aerospike engines. I worked on the Lockheed Martin X-33 (the prototype technology tester for the LM VentureStar), and I spent a lot of time with the good people at Rocketdyne, who were developing the XRS-2200 Linear Aerospike engine.

I have always wanted to see this concept in use, and I attended most of the XRS-2200 tests that were performed at Stennis in Mississippi. These engines were very, very promising. To me this was the most important technology to be tested on the X 33 as everyone knows the X 33 was canceled in March 2001, but we did at least get working linear aerospike engines and we had some data on those.

The difference that I can see between the engines you’re talking about (with a pulse detonation in a circular motion around the periphery of the ramp) and a circular aerospike engine will be that a circular aerospike engine would have all the thrusters operating simultaneously, and continuously, rather than pulses - moving around the periphery in a circular, tornadic fashion. I like this idea, except I would be more comfortable if the thrust were more symmetric about the center of the circular ramp. In other words, why couldn’t we have two detonating simultaneously across the center of the circular ramp from each other? I’m always a little uncomfortable about any kind of nonaxisymmetric thrust on a rocket engine, even if the pulses moved very quickly - there would still be some thrust vectoring (TVC) that might be an issue. I think this is something we would want to avoid.

The concept of aerospike engines with the external ramps is a very old one and it’s back to the 1950s. There was an instance of somebody (and I can’t member who) that put a circular aerospike engine on a barge… and they were able to get some good data from that test.

Great video, thanks for posting this! Cheers from New Orleans. 🥃

[gregwhitton]

The YouTube creator Integza made a really fascinating video with some scientists who're researching the rotary detonation. The video demonstrates the force and heat produced from relatively small RDE. Pretty cool video that I would suggest to anyone interested.

[FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

Just some helpful notions. 1. all materials are moving at a intermolecular level. 2. All motion is temperature... just depends on the scale and permability you are trying to reffer to. 3. All alignments are challenged simply by existing, let alone if you are exposing them to explosions. So the tighter the margins, the sooner it will need corrrecting, the lower ability to correct the sooner it will fail.

This technology can work. It needs strong attitudes willing to redoubt preconceptions and offer up sophisticated solutions to correct for problems rather than trying to simply change materials. ultrasonic pulses for example are under explored.

4. Fluid dynamics based on a static container can make for more complex calculations than if one was to use a dynamic container, i.e. ultrasonics or laminar flow calipers, that are able to interface with AI and work out what works prior to formulating formula.

[jklappenbach]

If they really get an RDE working, ready for production, it's going to change more than just orbital economics. It will change aviation as a whole.

Definitely one to watch.

[cowboybob]

They'll be fine for thrusters but long burns will hit the cooling barrier that confounds aerospike engines: The cooling demand rises by the cube and the cooling ability rises by the square. The NASA demo engines used a cooling method that's too heavy for flight. Once again Earth just barely lets us into orbit, but we're getting better.

[FWD]

Great Videos, we appreciate you taking your time to produce them !!

[stevesloan]

It’s ironic that the one main flaw in the internal combustion engine, the air flow around the edge of the bore to piston, is the bases of this technology.
Love it and love your content a lot.

[TrangleC]

The German V1 cruise missiles they shot at London in WW2 used a pulse detonation engine. That is why they made that infamous prattling noise people who experienced it often mention.
So it can't have been too complicated a principle if it predates the first fully functional jet engine.

[Dalorian]

I came up with a rotary detonation type engine design back in college like 15 years ago using hydrogen and oxygen, but i never pursued it very far as it was very expensive.

[Skargar]

I think this needs a lot experimentation with many different designs, which might then result into some hobby designer finding a weird solution that is designed in a way that it fixed most problems with keeping the detonation rolling.

[chubbymoth]

A 25% increase in efficiency will make this happen. Less components and thus increase reliability will also be a boon.The issue now is scale.

[mmxploration]

I always wondered why this promising propulsion system is not heavily used in aviation and rocket engineering. Thank you for explaining, great video!

[nathanalexanderguess]

A Glimpse of Eternity beckons me of faster than light speed craft

[sabrefayne]

My neighbors already hate my cars exhaust. I can't wait to unleash the exploding tornado.

[nkronert]

An exploding tornado. Why does this sound slightly worrying? 😂

[shintsu]

i am happy youtube suggested this video to me, i never heard about an RDE or detonation supersonic wave. makes me want to know more about these topics :)