Femtosecond/picosecond rotational coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering thermometry in the exhaust of a rotating detonation combustor

Spatio-temporally resolved measurements of temperature using hybrid femtosecond/picosecond rotational coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (fs/ps RCARS) are evaluated for characterizing the highly dynamic exhaust flow of a non-premixed hydrogen-air rotating detonation combustor (RDC). The RCARS system utilizes a recently developed kHz-rate probe-pulse amplification system that enables high probepulse energies and sufficient sensitivity to track RDC exhaust gas temperatures during the short similar to 15 s run time with a precision of similar to 2%. Because of the potential for high spatial gradients in temperature and pressure in the RDC exhaust, estimation of bias errors due to spatial averaging in the 700-mu m-long RCARS probe volume is conducted by employing the results of a reactive three-dimensional unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) model with a structured grid of 48.5 million cells. This results in a potential bias error of similar to 1.5% due to exhaust temperature gradients and underscores the need for high spatial resolution. The experimental and predicted exhaust temperature histograms show good correspondence with a statistically similar skew-normal distribution relevant to the flow's local dynamical features. By utilizing a high-speed camera synchronized with the RCARS system, it was possible to compare the numerical simulation results with the measured exhaust temperature profile obtained from knowledge of the instantaneous detonation-wave azimuth position. Similar azimuthal spatial variations of similar to 300 K were observed in the experimental and computed temperatures, indicating a relatively well-mixed exhaust flow. The temperature pattern factors of 0.19 and 0.20 obtained from the experimental and numerical data, respectively, are relatively close to isobaric combustors in modern gas turbine engines. These results illustrate the ability of the fs/ps RCARS and numerical modeling approaches to evaluate characteristics of the RDC exhaust flow for future development in propulsion and power generation systems. (C) 2021 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.