Detonation combustion regimes of a two-phase mixture of TS-1 aviation kerosene and air have been implemented and studied in a radial vortex combustor 500 mm in diameter with exhaustion toward the center and with a nozzle and axial partitions aligning the flow of combustion products in the axial direction. Continuous spin and pulse detonation regimes are obtained under strong initiation (by a detonation wave) and weak initiation (via deflagration-to-detonation transition). Under weak initiation conditions, continuous spin detonation with one transverse detonation wave is always observed, with the specific impulse reaching the maximum value in this experimental setup, {I{ₒ{, f, max}}} 1600 s. The specific impulses of this radial combustor are compared with those of annular cylindrical combustors burning kerosene in a continuous multifront detonation regime. It has been found that during detonation combustion of kerosene in cold air in annular cylindrical combustors, the specific impulses are higher than those in radial combustors. At hydrogen-to-air flow ratios close to stoichiometry at the start of injection, a self-ignition regime is observed, followed by a transition to continuous spin detonation. The time of the transition process is reduced to 10 ms by forced (spark) initiation of the hydrogen–air mixture.
Bykovskii et al. (Sun,) studied this question.