Rotating Detonation Engines (RDEs) provide a promising approach to increasing efficiency of gas turbine combustors by utilizing detonation-driven combustion process. While RDEs have been studied extensively in the past, much of this work has focused on the use of hydrogen as fuel. In order to develop RDEs for power generation applications, it is necessary to understand the physics of hydrocarbon detonation. This study utilizes detailed chemical kinetics to simulate a sequence of hydrocarbon-based canonical RDE configurations. The cases emulate ethylene and methane detonation in air with varying degrees of hydrogen dilution as well as a range of operating conditions. The results indicate the while ethylene-based detonations are not significantly affected by the addition of hydrogen, methane mixtures exhibit large changes to the detonation structure. In particular, the critical pressure at which heat release reaches a peak changes to lower values as the hydrogen concentration in the reactant mixture is increased. Detailed comparisons with one-dimensional profìles and the impact of back pressure on the detonation and post-detonation flow are analyzed. Further, profiles of species extracted from the simulations are compared with one-dimensional detonation profiles. Comparisons with theoretical models for thrust and specific impulse are also provided. It is established that the use of detailed chemical kinetics provides a reliable approach to assessing the performance characteristics of RDEs.
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