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Reaction engine operates on the principle of a controlled condensed detonation. In this engine the gas products that are expelled from the engine to produce thrust are generated by the condensed detonation reaction. The engine is constructed of two basic sections consisting of a detonation wave generator section and a condensed detonation reaction section.
A theory for the propagation of detonations through tubes coated with a thin fuel film is developed. Vaporization is assumed as the rate limiting process dominating the detonation structure. Inclusion of the boundary layer displacement effect resulted in better agreement between computed and measured propagation speed, pressure ratio, and reaction zone length than was obtained in an earlier theory in which this effect was neglected. New film detonation data is presented covering a wide range of fuel air ratios. A general Chapman-Jouguet condition is formulated for film detonations, and use of the plane of complete film vaporization as the Chapman-Jouguet plane is justified in the case of thin films.
In the present work a system of two-dimensional nonsteady hydrodynamic and chemical kinetic equations was numerically integrated for an exothermic system. Assumed two-step reaction model simulates practically an oxyhydrogen mixture. The calculation starts from a plane Chapman-Jouguet detonation as an initial condition. Two-dimensional disturbances are generated by artificially placing nonuniformities ahead of the detonation front. Regardless of the difference of the given initial disturbances, a fixed number of triple shock waves were produced for a fixed combination of mixture model and geometry when the transition period was over. This shows that for a given detonation tube geometry any exothermic system has its own characteristic multidimensional structure. The obtained number of triple shock waves contained in the detonation front was in agreement with existing experimental observations under the same condition.
Granular HMX of three degrees of fineness was packed into heavy-walled steel tubes closed at both ends. Ignition was obtained at one end using an intimate mixture of finely divided titanium and boron as an igniter that produced heat with little gas. The distance to detonation was determined by examination of the resulting tube fragments. By inserting tightly-fitted neoprene diaphragms periodically into the HMX column, it was shown that the role of convective combustion was limited to the initial stage of the deflagration to detonation (DDT) process. Experiments in which various combinations of two of the three types of HMX were loaded into the same tube showed that heating by adiabatic shear of explosive grains was an essential factor in the final buildup to detonation. A description of the DDT process is developed in which conductive burning is followed in turn by convective burning, bed collapse with plug formation, onset of accelerated burning at the front of the plug through heating by intercrystalline friction and adiabatic shear, and intense shock formation resulting in high-order detonation.
The results of a feasibility study that examined the effects of using detonation waves to augment the performance of gas turbines are reported. The central ideas were to reduce compressor requirements and to maintain high performance in jet engines. Gasdynamic equations were used to model the flows associated with shock waves generated by the detonation of fuel in detonator tubes. Shock wave attenuation to the level of Mach waves was found possible, thus eliminating interference with the compressor and the necessity of valves and seals. A preliminary parametric study of the performance of a compressor working at a 4:1 ratio in a conceptual design of a detonation wave augmented jet engine in subsonic flight indicated a clear superiority over conventional designs in terms of fuel efficiency and thrust.
In the range of greater hydrazine vapor pressure, detonation speed depends exclusively on the extent of the ammonia decomposition in the second reaction stage. As vapor pressure decreases, the ammonia disintegration speed becomes increasingly slower and the reaction reached in the reaction zone increasingly decreases until finally, in the vapor pressure range between 53 and 16 Torr, the contribution of the second stage to detonation propagation disappears, and only the first stage remains active. Since the disintegration speed of the hydrazine in this pressure range has decreased markedly as well, no level, but rather only spinning, detonations occur. Temporary separations of the impact front and the reaction zone in the process lead to fluctuations of the detonation speed.
Detonations were experienced in the Space Shuttle Main Engine fuel preburner (FPB) augmented spark igniter (ASI) during engine cutoff. Several of these resulted in over pressures sufficient to damage the FPB ASI oxidizer system. The detonations initiated in the FPB ASI oxidizer line when residual oxidizer (oxygen) in the line mixed with backflowing fuel (hydrogen) and detonated. This paper reviews the damage history to the FPB ASI oxidizer system, an engineering assessment of the problem cause, a verification of the mechanisms, the hazards associated with the detonations, and the solution implemented.
An account is given of the numerical methods employed in a code for the simulation of supersonic combustion, which is then applied to the simulation of attached detonations and flames associated with the oblique-detonation wave supersonic combustor concept. The addition of heat by a detonation wave results in a shorter combustor than can be obtained in more conventional scramjet designs. Pure oblique detonations have been produced in a stoichiometric, uniformly mixed hydrogen/air stream; the wave rotates upstream with energy release, according to simple analytical arguments. Flow visualization maps for Mach number and temperature are presented.
The detonation velocity and cell widths for hydrazine decomposition were measured over a wide range of temperatures and pressures. The detonation velocity in pure hydrazine was within 5 percent of the calculated C-J velocity. The detonation cell width measurements were interpreted using the Zeldovich-Doering-von Neumann model with a detailed reaction mechanism for hydrazine decomposition. Excellent agreement with experimental data for pure hydrazine was obtained using the empirical relation that detonation cell width was equal to 29 times the kinetically calculated reaction zone length.
The feasibility of the generation of detonation waves moving periodically across high speed channel flow is experimentally demonstrated. Such waves are essential to the concept of compressing requirements and increasing the engine pressure compressor with the objective of reducing conventional compressor requirements and increasing the engine thermodynamic efficiency through isochoric energy addition. By generating transient transverse waves, rather than standing waves, shock wave losses are reduced by an order of magnitude. The ultimate objective is to use such detonation ducts downstream of a low pressure gas turbine compressor to produce a high overall pressure ratio thermodynamic cycle. A 4 foot long, 1 inch x 12 inch cross-section, detonation duct was operated in a blow-down mode using compressed air reservoirs. Liquid or vapor propane was injected through injectors or solenoid valves located in the plenum or the duct itself. Detonation waves were generated when the mixture was ignited by a row of spark plugs in the duct wall. Problems with fuel injection and mixing limited the air speeds to about Mach 0.5, frequencies to below 10 Hz, and measured pressure ratios of about 5 to 6. The feasibility of the gas dynamic compression was demonstrated and the critical problem areas were identified.
Studies were conducted of the detonation of gas-phase mixtures of n-hexane and JP-4, with oxidizers as varied as air and pure oxygen, measuring detonation velocities and cell sizes as a function of stoichiometry and diluent concentration. The induction length of a one-dimensional Zeldovich-von Neumann-Doering detonation was calculated on the basis of a theoretical model that employed the reaction kinetics of the hydrocarbon fuels used. Critical energy and critical tube diameter are compared for a relative measure of the heavy hydrocarbon fuels studied; detonation sensitivity appears to increase slightly with increasing carbon number.
A custom short-wave infrared (SWIR) galvanometric streak camera was developed to provide nanosecond- scale, time-resolved optical diagnostics. The system was designed as a compact, mechanically driven alternative to traditional tube-based streak cameras, using a galvanometer mirror and multiple-reflection optical path to achieve high temporal resolution while maintaining electronic synchronization for trigger sequencing. Temporal resolution achieved 139.5 ns/px, allowing direct conversion of image-slope gradients to physical wave velocities. The instrument was validated using hydrogen-oxygen-argon detonations within a modular detonation tube, capturing transient emission structures and post-detonation decay behavior with microsecond precision. Although signal levels in filtered configurations were limited by lens transmission and detector sensitivity, the system successfully resolved intensity rise and decay characteristics across 10-60 % argon mixtures. The observed trends demonstrate the feasibility of compact galvanometer-based streak systems for high-speed SWIR imaging in reactive environments!
A legacy FORTRAN 77 implementation of the Baer–Nunziato two-phase mixture theory for deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT) in reactive granular materials—hereafter the XDDT (eXplosive DDT) code—has been modularized to Fortran 90 with modular structure, external input files, and adaptive mesh capability. During validation, two code defects were identified and corrected: an inconsistency in the nodal solid pressure evaluation and a nonphysical burn-front tracking criterion. The ignition criterion was also corrected to use the granular surface temperature from the interface heat transfer model, matching the original Baer implementation. An initial attempt to validate against Figure 3 of the original Baer and Nunziato (1986) paper revealed that the code’s detonation velocity on a 201-node mesh (5.5 km/s) was approximately 21% below the expected Chapman–Jouguet value for 70% TMD HMX (∼7 km/s). Validation was redirected to the piston-driven DDT experiments of McAfee et al. (1989), Shot B-9036, for which well-characterized ionization-pin data are available. With the compaction-burn coefficient calibrated to 𝐶 𝛼 = 75, the XDDT code reproduces the DDT transition time to within 0.4% and produces a steady-state detonation velocity within 4% of the McAfee experimental value of 6.36 km/s. The burn model was generalized to support pressure-dependent exponents, enabling application to nitrocellulose-based ball propellants (TS3659) with a cube-root pressure dependence. Validation against the Sandusky/Baer PDC82 piston-impact experiment yielded a reactive wave velocity of 2.3–2.8 km/s, in good agreement with the experimental value of ∼2.2 km/s, and wave coalescence within 5% of the experimental timing. The mathematical model, input parameter requirements, and a roadmap for extending XDDT to PETN with an autocatalytic burn model are presented.
We investigate the numerical stability of thermonuclear detonations in 1D accelerated reactive shocks and 2D binary collisions of equal-mass magnetized and unmagnetized white dwarf stars. To achieve high resolution at initiation sites, we devised geometric gridding and mesh velocity strategies specially adapted to the unique requirements of head-on collisional geometries, scenarios in which one expects maximum production of iron-group products. We study the effects of grid resolution and the limiting of temperature, energy, and reactants for different stellar masses, separations, magnetic fields, inigenerationtial compositions, detonation mechanisms, and limiter parameters across a range of cell sizes from 1 to 100 km. Our results set bounds on the parameter space of limiter amplitudes for which both temperature- and energy-limiting procedures yield consistent and monotonically convergent solutions. Within these bounds, we find that grid resolutions of 5 km or better are necessary for uncertainties in total released energy and iron-group products to drop below 10%. Intermediate-mass products (e.g., calcium) exhibit similar convergence trends but with somewhat greater uncertainty. These conclusions apply equally to pure C/O white dwarfs, multispecies compositions (including helium shells), magnetized and unmagnetized cores, and either single or multiple detonation scenarios.
Composition, temperature, pressure and density behind a stable detonation wave and its propagation rate have been calculated for seven hydrogen-oxygen mixture at 1, 5, 25 and 100 atm initial pressure, and at an initial temperature of 40C. For stoichiometric mixtures that calculations also include an initial temperature of 200C. According to these calculations the detonation velocities of hydrogen-oxygen mixtures increase with increasing initial pressure, but decrease slightly when the initial temperature is raised from 40 to 200 C. The calculated detonation velocities agree satisfactorily with values determined experimentally. These values will be published in the near future.
A sonic boom pressure profile was simulated in the far-field by detonation of a methane-oxygen mixture contained in a slender, shaped Mylar envelope. Ideal N-waves were synthesized with peak overpressures from two to five psf and durations of 30 to 75 milliseconds. The detonation of the gas mixture was initiated by a single Primacord strand running the length of balloon. The N-wave producing balloon was synthesized as a composite structure, utilizing experimental pressure profiles obtained from the detonations of slender, axisymmetric balloons with elementary, non-cylindrical shapes.
Immediate longitudinal detonations have been observed in confined small-diameter columns of PETN, RDX, and tetryl by using a focused Q-switched ruby laser. The energy ranged from 0.8 to 4.0 J in a pulse width of 25 nsec. A 1000-A-thick aluminum film deposited on a glass window was used to generate a shock wave at the window-explosive interface when irradiated by the laser. In some cases, steady-state detonations were reached in less than .5 microsec with less than 10% variation in the detonation velocity.
A technique and apparatus for optically detonating insensitive high explosives, is disclosed. An explosive device is formed by containing high explosive material in a house having a transparent window. A thin metallic film is provided on the interior surface of the window and maintained in contact with the high explosive. A laser pulse provided by a Q-switched laser is focussed on the window to vaporize the metallic film and thereby create a shock wave which detonates the high explosive. Explosive devices may be concurrently or sequentially detonated by employing a fiber optic bundle to transmit the laser pulse to each of the several individual explosive devices.