An experimental investigation of the direct initiation of cylindrical detonations

Abstract

The direct initiation of gaseous detonation is investigated experimentally in the cylindrical geometry. By using a long source of energy deposition along a line (i.e. pentaerythritoltetranitrate (PETN) detonating cord), undesirable charge initiation and confinement effects are eliminated. This permitted the different flow fields of direct initiation of detonation to be studied unambiguously. Although the detonation velocity in the detonating cord is finite, it was sufficiently large compared to the acoustic velocity in the surrounding gas to permit the different flow fields to be investigated within the hypersonic analogy framework, by which the detonating cord synchronizes a continuous series of cylindrical initiation events along its length. The hypersonic approximation was validated in experiments conducted in a non-reactive medium (air). In the supercritical regime of initiation in combustible gas, stable oblique detonations were observed, confirming their existence and stability. In the critical regime, the onset of detonation was observed to occur consistently from stochastic detonative centres. These centres appeared during the initial decay of the blast wave to sub-Chapman–Jouguet (CJ) velocities. The photographic evidence revealed the three-dimensional details of the detonation kernels' amplification. The present results in the cylindrical geometry are further used to discuss criteria for direct initiation of detonations. In conjunction with previous experiments in the spherical and planar geometries, a criterion for direct initiation is found to involve a critical decay rate of the reacting blast wave. In light of the experimental evidence of the inherent three-dimensional effects during the initiation phase, the strict one-dimensionality of current theoretical models is discussed.

The role of multidimensional instabilities in direct initiation of gaseous detonations in free space

“…Experimental studies (see, for instance, Radulescu et al (2003)) have identified three typical regimes in a direct initiation of detonation: sub-critical, critical and super-critical. The sub-critical regime occurs when the source energy, E s , is relatively low.…”

Detonation Initiation in a Tube via Imploding Toroidal Shock Waves

“…Thus, confinement enhances the initiation process over only a finite range of tube diameters. Solving for the intersection of E spherical and E planar R 2 tube , using the values of Radulescu [36], yields that the transition occurs near R tube 21:6, which corresponds to approximately 1.0 m for propane-air mixtures at 0.10 MPa and 295 K. This logic implies that, for the current study, the initiation energy should scale with the planar energy.…”

“…To date, most comparisons [32,33,35] between theory and experiment have studied only spherical initiation into an unconfined volume, although some work has been done on cylindrical geometries [36,37].…”

“…The range between E tube and E spherical can be several orders of magnitude. For example, in stoichiometric propane-air, the work of Radulescu [36] predicts that E spherical 702 kJ while E tube E planar A tube 0:87 kJ for a 7.6 cm i.d. tube.…”

“…In earlier work, Radulescu et al [37] determined that the explosion length R 0 , computed from their initiation energies, scaled with the mixture cell size. Such analysis is difficult to justify in the current study because, as mentioned, the energy inputs E s computed in this section overestimate the critical initiation energy.…”