Rotating Detonation Engine:
India-based defence start-up D-Propulse announced that it had successfully demonstrated a rotating detonation engine at a Defence Research & Development Organisation facility in Hyderabad.
- Rotating Detonation Engine (RDE) is a type of propulsion system that differs from conventional gas turbines and ramjets in the way it uses fuel.
- Usually, engines use deflagration, which is a subsonic, steady way of burning fuel through a flame.
- On the contrary, an RDE uses detonation, wherein the fuel burns faster as rapid supersonic explosions rotate through the chamber of the engine.
- This rapid detonation produces more thrust for the same amount of fuel.
- This volume savings can be used to increase fuel and/or payload volume, providing potential range, speed, and affordability benefits compared to rockets, ramjets, and gas-turbines.
- These mechanically simple RDEs have no moving parts, making them less complex than gas turbine engines and therefore potentially lower cost and simpler to manufacture.
