Design of a High-Temperature Acoustic Liner for Enhancement of Detonation Wave Dynamics in a Lab-Scale Rotating Detonation Combustor

HySonic Technologies, founded by Dr. Carlo Scalo, addresses this call by combining its capabilities in design of acoustically absorptive high-temperature materials with Dr. Carson Slabaugh’s (Purdue University) well-established expertise in designing and testing of Rotating Detonation Combustors (RDC) at various scales. HySonic’s history in the design of acoustically absorptive material relies on a previously awarded ONR SBIR Contract (N68335-19-C-0312) where acoustically absorptive high-temperature carbon-fiber ceramics have been already developed targeting the frequency range of 100 kHz – 300 kHz for hypersonic boundary layer control.  In Phase 1 of the current effort, HySonic will design an acoustic benchtest apparatus, covering the 1kHz – 10kHz range (relevant for RDC applications), to assess the acoustic absorption spectrum of various candidate high-temperature resistant materials.  The challenge lies in balancing the acoustic absorption performance - which requires surface and volumetric porosity - with thermal and structural resistivity, which requires a material that is densified as much as possible. The same materials will also be tested in the lab-scale (4” diameter) RDC already available in Dr. Slabaugh’s group to assess their survivability and acoustic absorption properties in a high heat flux / shear stress environment. Computational modeling at various levels of fidelity will also be attempted with the goal of reconciling the benchtest acoustic measurements with the lab-scale RDC results. If awarded Phase II, the HySonic/Purdue team will scale this effort to a large scale RDC rig (9” diameter) already available in Dr. Slabaugh’s group starting in the option phase, while simultaneously pursuing updated computational results.