Radulescu, Matei (University of Ottawa)|Radulescu, Matei (Université d’Ottawa)

Purpose

Detonation waves are self-sustained supersonic combustion waves. These waves can be sustained in most energetic media including reactive gases. For safety applications, it is thus desirable to have the predictive capability for the eventual ignition of a detonation wave and for its propagation limits when different mitigation strategies are used. Likewise, propulsion applications of detonation waves (e.g., rotating detonation engines, pulse-detonation engine, oblique detonation engine) require accurate control of the wave initiation and stability. For all practical purposes, the detonation behavior needs to be predicted on scales on the order of meters (engine geometry, detonation arrestors, industrial facility configuration, etc...), whereas the detonation wave thickness phenomena occur at scales comparable to the molecular mean free path, i.e. less than a micron. The detonation phenomenon is thus an inherent multi-scale problem, with multi-scale physics. Adequate predictability of detonation wave dynamics is not currently possible at engineering scales. Achieving such predictability is the main thrust of my long-term research program on gaseous detonations.