How to utilize the kinetic energy of pulsed detonation products?

•How to increase the efficiency of the gas-steam hybrid cycle using pulsed detonations?•We extract the kinetic energy of detonation products by a durable pulse turbine.•Calculations and experiments show that only 8–16% of the kinetic energy is utilized.•There exists the optimal value of the rotor blade blockage factor providing the maximum torque.•The torque is created by several reflections of the lead shock wave from rotor blades.•Flow oscillations in the exhaust duct of the pulse turbine are small.•This allows the use of conventional gas and/or steam turbines further downstream. The possibility of utilizing the kinetic energy of detonation products by a pulse turbine of the simplest water-wheel-like design during the implementation of the Zel'dovich thermodynamic cycle with pulse detonation combustion of fuel is investigated computationally and experimentally. The coefficients of utilization of the momentum and kinetic energy of detonation products in the pulse turbine with unoptimized mass and dimensions are found to be as low as 8%–16%. To improve the efficiency of the pulse turbine, it is necessary to take measures for eliminating unnecessary reflections of shock waves, to select the optimal mass and dimensions of the turbine rotor and the number of blades, to profile the blades and to select the optimal angle of attack, to optimize the size of the lateral gap between the rotor and the housing, and to select the optimum location of the exhaust duct. It is expected that the efficiency of a combined cycle including the optimized pulse turbine and conventional gas and/or steam turbines attached to the exhaust duct could be higher than the efficiency of a conventional hybrid cycle by at most 9%.