Improved Heat and Mass Transfer Analysis in Supersonic Combustion of the Rotating Detonation Engine

Similarities in the results for two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) numerical models for the rotating detonation engine were reported previously by the present authors[AIAA 2023-4387], with the conclusion that the main differences were mostly restricted to the active combustion (detonation) region of the transverse detonation wave. Further studies, which are reported in this paper, have now revealed some unexpected differences that were not observed in the cited reference. This concerns the derived fields of the azimuthally averaged heat flux in 2D vs the azimuthally and radially averaged counterpart in 3D. These differences are summarized in this paper, while further investigations are underway to determine the validity of these results and understand the physics and/or chemistry behind them.