UNM Leads $1.6M ONR Grant to Develop High-Efficiency Propulsion Engine

UNM Leads $1.6M ONR Grant to Develop High-Efficiency Propulsion Engine is sponsored by Office of Naval Research (ONR). This opportunity supports mission-aligned projects and measurable outcomes.

UNM leads $1. 6M ONR grant to develop high-efficiency propulsion engine Students and Koutsakis work on the Rotating Detonation Engine. Brendan Canales, a Mechanical Engineering undergraduate student in the Koutsakis Lab, works on programming for the engine.

Micah Wolbrecht (right) is a Mechanical Engineering undergraduate student working on 3D modeling in the Koutsakis Lab. The Rotating Detonation Engine is designed to include the iconic Zia symbol found on the New Mexico flag. UNM leads $1.

6M ONR grant to develop high-efficiency propulsion engine Five-year grant in collaboration with Purdue University Inside a University of New Mexico research lab, a novel propulsion engine operates at extremely high frequencies, promising to deliver a new avenue for clean energy — but first, researchers have to find materials that can survive its extreme conditions.

George Koutsakis developed the novel rotating detonation engine for materials testing. The five-year project, titled “Sustained Thermomechanical Response of High-Frequency Propulsion Materials,” is in collaboration with Professor Rodney Trice, Professor Jeffrey Youngblood, and graduate student Samuel Blankenship, all of Purdue University’s School of Materials Engineering.

Undergraduate students Micah Wolbrecht and Brendan Canales of UNM's Department of Mechanical Engineering will also be assisting with the work. The project utilizes a rotating detonation engine developed by Koutsakis, which operates at extremely high frequencies and temperatures. The technology could mark a new generation of clean energy and development of a propulsion application with up to 30% higher thermodynamic efficiency.

The challenge, which engineers will investigate in the new ONR grant, is ensuring that the materials used in the engine can withstand harsh conditions. The structure developed by UNM is what you might see surrounding a flame on a rocket, except in this case, it’s inside a lab designed to careful specifications instead of flying through the air.

For this project, the research team will analyze stress, strain, and crack propagation in ceramic matrix composite structures using an analytical thermomechanics framework and experiments to determine the optimal balance between performance and durability in ceramic materials with and without coatings.

To test durability, materials will be exposed to a variety of critical environmental factors across different exposure times in the engine. Researchers also plan to develop a barrier coating designed to reduce heat flux and enhance resistance to environmental attack. Rotating Detonation Engine Receive weekly news from The University of New Mexico in your inbox Do you have a suggestion for a story that illustrates excellence at UNM?