Thermal pulse combustor at University of Tennessee, College of Engineering, Combustion Research Laboratory, part of the Chaos Research Group's current interests. Exhaust is toward the left. Although fuel and oxydizer generally are admitted to the combustor continuously, combustion is not continuous but rather pulses in phase with the acoustic pressure front. The natural frequency of oscillation is strongly determined by the length of the exhaust-gas tailpipe, but fuel and oxydizer input rates also influence combustion behavior. The thermal pulse combustor is the simplest form of pulse combustors.
Exhaust gases flow out of the tailpipe.
The combustion chamber and tailpipe combination serve as an acoustic resonator. Pulse combustors have many practical applications, the most common of which is in industrial water heaters. The primary goal of the CRG's research in thermal pulse combustion is to apply chaos-control techniques to improve combustor performance. Active control could have profound effects in reducing undesirable pollutant emissions and in fuel efficiency. Chaos control has already been demonstrated on a pulse-combustor numerical model.