Researchers develop new rocket-propulsion system (2020)

A University of Central Florida researcher and his team have developed an advanced new rocket-propulsion system once thought to be impossible. "The study presents, for the first time, experimental evidence of a safe and functioning hydrogen and oxygen propellant detonation in a rotating detonation rocket engine," says Kareem Ahmed, an assistant professor in UCF's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering who led the research. William Hargus, lead of the Air Force Research Laboratory's Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine Program, is a co-author of the study and began working with Ahmed on the project last summer. "Several projects are now re-examining hydrogen detonation combustion within rotating detonation rocket engines because of these results. I am very proud to be associated with this high-quality research." "These research results already are having repercussions across the international research community." - William Hargus, study co-author. The research was performed at UCF's Propulsion and Energy Research Laboratory. He is the director of UCF's Propulsion and Energy Research Laboratory, a faculty member of UCF's Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research, associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, AFRL Faculty Research Fellow, and a member of UCF's Renewable Energy and Chemical Transformation Cluster.