Abstract
The cycle of an ideal pulse detonation engine (PDE) was theoretically analyzed. A PDE was modeled as a straight tube, one end of which was closed and the other end open. A detonation wave was ignited at the closed end and simultaneously started to propagate toward the open end. When the detonation wave broke out from the open end, a rarefaction wave started to propagate from the open end toward the closed end. We analytically obtained a functional form of the thrust-density history, showing a plateau followed by decay. Using the obtained history of the thrust density, we formulated some PDE performance parameters such as impulse density per cycle.
