1.

1 Description of Pulse Combustion:

Pulsating combustion is a combustion process that occurs under oscillatory conditions. That means that
the state variables, such as pressure, temperature, velocity of combustion gases, etc., that describe the
condition in the combustion zone, varyperiodically with time. Pulse combustion is a very old
technology. The phenomenon of combustion-driven oscillations was first observed in the year 1777,
subsequently explained by Lord Rayleigh in the year 1878, and used in a variety of applicationsaround
the turn of theCentury.

Fig 1-1: General Pulse Combustion Process

One of the better known examples of a pulse combustor is the German V-1 "Buzz Bomb " of
World War II; Although the technology of pulse combustion has been known for many years, devices
using pulsecombustion have not been implemented widely despite their many attractivecharacteristics.
Fig 1-2: Combustion chamber explosion
Compared to conventional combustion systems, their heat transfer rates are a factor of two to five
higher than normal turbulent values, their combustion intensities are up to on order of magnitude higher,
their emissions of oxides of nitrogen are a factor of three lower, their thermal efficiencies are up to
40% higher, andthey may be self-aspirating, obviating the need for a blower. This combination of
attributes can result in favorable economic trade off with conventional combustors in many applications.
Most of the research on pulse combustors has been directed toward applied examinations of the
engineering aspects of pulse combustors: heat transfer, efficiency, frequency of operation, pollutant
formation, etc.

There is also uncertainty over the behavior of frequency as a function of geometry, energy input, and
mass input. Zinn states that the pulse combustor can be modeled as a Helmholtz resonator, while Dec
and Keller found that the frequency of operation is a function of the magnitude of the energy input and
of the magnitude of the mass flux. These results indicate that a Helmholtz resonator model is
insufficient to predict the frequency of operation. These fundamental questions must be answered before
the prediction of an optimum resonant condition is possible.

It involves combustion-induced flow oscillations produced intentionally through the equipment design.
Pulse combustors can be divided into two general classes: those in which the pulsations occur naturally
because of combustion-induced instability and those that require an external device, such as a flapper
valve, to maintain the pulse- combustion process. The combustor used in this project belongs to the first
of these classes.This class of combustors which can be referred to as self-sustained or resonating-pulse
combustors can be divided further in to three types: Helmholtz, Schmidt and Rijke depending upon the
configuration of the combustor and the characteristics of the oscillations.
 2. Theory of Pulse Jet Engines

2.1 Pulse jet engine:

A pulse jet engine is a type of jet engine in which combustion occurs in pulses. Pulsejet engines can be made
with few or no moving parts, and are capable of running statically.

Pulse jet engines are a lightweight form of jet propulsion, but usually have a poor compression ratio, and hence
give a low specific impulse.

Pulsejet is an unsteady propulsive device with its basic components being the inlet, combustion chamber, valve
and valve head assembly and a tailpipe.

Fig 2.1-1: Schematic of pulse combustion operation

2.2 Types of Pulse Jet Engines:
There are two types of pulse jet engines: those with valves and those without. The ones with valves allow air to
come in through the intake valve and exit through the exhaust valve after combustion takes place. Pulse jet
engines without valves, however, use their own design as a valve system and often allow exhaust gases to exit
from both the intake and exhaust pipes, although the engine is usually designed so that most of the exhaust
gases exit through the exhaust pipe.

 Valved pulsejet engine.

 Valveless pulsejet engine.

A. Valved pulsejet engine:

Valved engines use a mechanical valve to control the flow of expanding exhaust, forcing the hot gas to go out
of the back of the engine through the tailpipe only, and allow fresh air and more fuel to enter through the
intake. The valved pulsejet comprises of a intake with a one-way valve arrangement. The valves prevent the
explosive gas of the ignited fuel mixture in the combustion chamber from exiting and disrupting the intake
airflow, although with all practical valved pulsejets there is some 'blowback' while running statically and at low
speed as the valves cannot close fast enough to stop all the gas from exiting the intake. The hot exhaust gases
exit through an acoustically resonant exhaust pipe. The valve arrangement is commonly a "daisy valve" also
known as a reed valve. The daisy valve is less effective than a rectangular valve grid, although it is easier to
construct on a small scale.

Fig 2.2-1: Valved Pulsejet Engine

B. Valveless pulsejet engine.
The valveless pulse jet engine operates on the same principle, but the 'valve' is the engine's geometry. Fuel as a
gas or liquid vapour is either mixed with the air in the intake or directly injected into the combustion chamber.
Starting the engine usually requires forced air and an ignition method such as a spark plug for the fuel-air mix.
With modern manufactured engine designs, almost any design can be made to be 'self-starting' by providing the
engine with fuel and an ignition spark, starting the engine with no compressed air. Once running, the engine
only requires input of fuel to maintain a self-sustaining combustion cycle.

Valveless pulsejets, have no moving parts and use only their geometry to control the flow of exhaust out of the
engine. Valveless engines expel exhaust gases out of both the intake and the exhaust, most try to have the
majority of exhaust go out the longer tail pipe, for more efficient propulsion.

Fig2.2-2:Valveless pulsejet engine

Fuel is drawn into the combustion chamber through the intake valve in either as an air-gas mixture or in liquid
form. The intake valve then closes and a spark plug is used to ignite the fuel in the combustion chamber. The
fuel then expands rapidly and tries to fill the entire chamber in order to escape. The closed intake valve forces
the fuel to the rear of the combustion chamber and allows the exhaust gases to exit through the exhaust valve.

2.3 History of Valveless Pulse Jet Engines:

The idea of pulsed combustion was conceived even before the use of steady state combustion employed in gas
turbine engines. Over the past hundred years various number of valveless pulsejet designs have been invented
and tested. These are classified into three main systems

 Inline systems
 U-shaped systems
 Linear systems
2.3.1:Inline systems
The systems, which have an intake pipe, combustion chamber and exhaust pipe, all on the same axis
with intake and exhaust held in opposite directions are called inline systems. The advantage of this
system is that when the engine has positive forward air velocity the intake has air rushing into it creating
a ram-air effect, similar to ram jet engines. Moreover the fabrication and fitting of inline systems is
much easier than any other systems. The disadvantage is that these engines have lower thrust than other
systems because the hot air exiting the intake after combustion does not to contribute to net thrust and
actually creates negative trust that has to be overcome. To overcome this many complicated and mostly
infeasible aerodynamic valves have been created to allow the ram air effect to work without allowing
the air to move back through so as to increase thrust. However none have been proven effective.

Marconnet design
In 1909 Georges Marconnet developed the first pulsating combustor without valves. It was the father of
all valveless pulse jets. Marconnet found that a blast inside a chamber would prefer to go through a
bigger exhaust opening rather than squeezing through a relatively narrow intake. In addition a long
diffuser between the intake and the combustion chamber would direct the charge strongly towards
exhaust, the way a trumpet directs sound.

Fig 2.3.1-1 Marconnet’s valveless pulsejet engine

Schubert design
The principle of the valveless pulsating combustor was discovered by Lt.William Schubert of the US
NAVY in the early 1940s. Schubert’s design was called a “resojet” on the account on its dependence on
resonance.

The taper less attachments of the inlet tube to the combustion chamber in Schubert’s design creates
strong turbulence for better mixing of fuel and air so that high intensity combustion takes place.
Schubert carefully calculated the geometry of the intake so that the exhaust gas could not exit by the
time the pressure inside fell below atmospheric.

The resistance of a tube to the passage of gas depends steeply on the gas temperature. Thus, the same
tube will offer a much greater resistance to outgoing hot gas than to the incoming cold air.
The impedance is inversely proportional to the square root of the gas temperature. This degree
of irreversibility seems to offer the possibility for the cool air necessary for combustion to get in during
the intake part of the cycle, but for the hot gas to encounter too much resistance to get out of the intake
during the expansion part.

Fig 2.3.1-2 Schubert’s valveless pulsejet engine

2.3.2:U-shaped systems
The U-shape design overcomes the shortfall of the inline design by bending the exhaust pipe by 180
degrees, so that the exhaust and intake are aligned in the same direction. The advantage of this design is
that the thrust generated by the inlet contributes to the net thrust of the engine as it flows in the same
direction as the exhaust. The disadvantage is that the ram-air affect is lost. Moreover fabrication is quite
complex.
Lockwood-Hiller
The U-shaped Lockwood-Hiller engine was invented by Raymond Lockwood. It is said that the
Lockwood was the most effective pulse jet engine ever developed.

The air fuel mixture is generated by mixing fuel which is injected through a jet built into the side of the
combustion chamber or on a strut projecting into the chamber or on two crossed struts spanning the
front part of the chamber. The chamber is the drum like broad part of the engine. The short straight tube
attached to the combustion chamber is the inlet. And the long U tube attached to the combustion
chamber is the tail pipe. The tailpipe is fitted with a flare at the end.

Fig 2.3.2-1 U-shaped Lockwood Hiller engine

The Lockwood-Hiller design is the most successful example of U-shaped designs in both performance
and efficiency. Conversely it is difficult to construct because of numerous cone sections are to be
fabricated for it.

2.3.3: Linear systems

There are many designs of valveless pulsejet engines that cannot be categorized by either U-shape or
inline designs. These engines are generally variations of inline designs with the intake moved to the side
of the combustion chamber. The typical feature of the linear engine is that the intake emanates from the
side of the combustion chamber. The advantage of this type of engine is that the physical size is smaller
than an equivalent U-shaped engine making integration into airframe more practical.

These engines are also simpler to manufacture than U-shape design. The disadvantage of this design is
the tuning difficulty for optimized performance as the intake length is directly proportional to exhaust
length. Net thrust outputs are considerably greater than inline while performance is less than the
equivalent U-shape design as the efficiency is limited by intake position.
Argus design
The capped tube design was first invented by the Argus Company (manufacturer of German V-1
bombs). It consisted of combustion chamber (plenum chamber), which formed a bottle shape design
capped over with a hemispherical top. Fuel was injected through a nozzle located on the tip of the cap
and protected from the chamber with metal grid. The grid functioned as a heat sink and prevented gas
from burning at the nozzle.

Pressurized air was forced into the plenum chamber continuously using a compressor, the combustion
took place and the hot gases expanded. The continuous supply of the compressed air into the plenum
chamber prevented hot gas from getting out of the plenum chamber and almost all of it were thrusted
into the exhaust. The engine did not self sustain or resonate due to the reasons of smaller plenum
chamber and exhaust length.

Fig 2.3.3-1 Capped tube-Argus

2.4 Why Valveless Pulsejets:

A valveless pulse jet engine is a simple and ordinary engine. It is just a piece of metal tube cut to the
required dimensions. In a valveless pulsejet engine there are no mechanical valves but they do have
aerodynamic valves which for the most part resist the flow in a single direction. They have no
mechanically moving parts and sothey are more reliable. All valveless engines have low thrust output,
high fuel consumption and overall poor performance.
 Fig 2.4-1: A 4-Pound Valveless Pulse Jet

Pulsejets can be used on a large scale as industrial drying systems, and there has been a new surge to
study and apply these engines to applications such as high output heating, biomass conversion, and
alternative energy systems,as pulsejets can run on almost anything that burns inclusding particulate fuels
such as sawdust or coal powder.

2.5 Application of pulsejet engine:

Pulse jet engines have been used in many functional jets; they can also be used for a variety of
other applications such as:

Ground Applications: 1) Water heating

2) Biomass fuel conversion,

3) Heat generators

4) Orchard fields

Flight Applications: 1) In radio controlled aircraft

2) Target drone aircraft and control line.

Merits:
Pulse jet engines are easy to build on a small scale and can be constructed using few or no
moving parts. This means that the total cost of each pulse jet engine is much cheaper than traditional
turbine engines. Pulse jet engines do not produce torque like turbine engines do, and have a higher
thrust-to-weight ratio.

De-Merits:
While pulse jet engines can be beneficial to many industries, they do have several disadvantages. For
example, pulse jet engines are very loud which only makes them practical for military and industrial
purposes. Also, pulse jet engines do not have very good thrust specific fuel consumption levels.
Likewise, pulse jet engines use acoustic resonance rather than external compression devices to compress
fuels before combustion.