Jet Deflection in Pulsed Crossflow: A Scaling Law for Rotating Detonation Engines

Fluidic thrust vectoring (FTV) allows for steering of launch vehicles by injecting a secondary fluid stream into the nozzle exhaust, redirecting the flow without moving parts. The emergence of rotating detonation engines (RDEs) breaks the steady flow assumption typically used in FTV research since their pulsed detonation cycle introduces a frequency-dependent momentum ratio that steady FTV theory cannot capture. This document presents a scaling law that predicts jet deflection angle for an RDE environment and quantifies the relationship between the steady FTV baseline and the RDE application.