Abstract
This paper experimentally investigates the viability of select fuels for a micropulsejet with a nominal length of 8 cm designed for use in micro air vehicles (MAVs). This micropulsejet operates at a frequency of about 1500 Hz. Candidate fuels were chosen with two basic criteria that make them reasonable for use with MAV systems: 1) energy density and 2) kinetic rate of combustion. To meet the first requirement, the tested fuels are storable as a liquid at low pressures but have a low boiling point to allow the fuel to be delivered to the combustion chamber as a gas. The fuels must also have fast kinetics to allow operation at this frequency. The laminar burning velocity is used as a measure of the overall kinetic rate, and viable fuels must be faster than that of propane, which has been shown both computationally and experimentally to be too slow. Selected fuels should have burning velocities between propane and hydrogen, which has been demonstrated to be fast enough to run on this scale but has undesirable storage properties.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Fall Meeting of the Eastern States Section of the Combustion Institute 2009 |
| Publisher | Combustion Institute |
| Pages | 823-826 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781615676682 |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2009 |
| Externally published | Yes |