Transition of plane overdriven detonation wave to the Chapman-Jouguet regime

Abstract

The asymptotic laws of behavior for plane, cylindrical, and spherical infinitely thin detonation waves were found in [1, 2] for increasing distance from an igniting source in those cases in which the waves changed into Chapman-Jouguet waves as they decayed. It was shown that the plane overdriven detonation wave approaches the Chapman-Jouguet regime asymptotically, while the transition of the cylindrical or spherical strong detonation wave into the Chapman-Jouguet wave may occur at a finite distance from the initiation source.

Similar conclusions are valid for the propagation of stationary steadystate detonation waves which arise with flow of combustible gas mixtures past bodies.

However, numerous experiments [3, 4] on firing bodies in a detonating gas show that the overdriven detonation wave which forms ahead of the body decays and decomposes into an ordinary compression shock and a slow combustion front. To establish why the wave does not make the transition to the Chapman-Jouguet regime, in the following we consider the propagation of a plane detonation wave and account for finite chemical reaction rates. We use the very simple two-front model (ordinary shock wave and following flame front). Conditions are found for which transition to the Chapman-Jouguet regime does not occur. We first consider the propagation of an unsteady plane wave and then the steady plane wave. It is found that for all the mixtures used in these experiments transition to the Chapman-Jouguet regime is not possible within the framework of the assumed model.