Numerical Structure Analysis of Regular Hydrogen-Oxygen Detonations

Ralf Deiterding California Institute of Technology 1200 East California Blvd., MC 158-79, Pasadena, CA 91125 [email protected] Abstract Large-scale numerical simulations have been carried out to analyze the internal wave structure of a regular oscillating low-pressure H2 : O2 : Ar-Chapman-Jouguet detonation in two and three space-dimensions. The chemical reaction is modeled with a non-equilibrium mechanism that consists of 34 elementary reactions and uses nine thermally perfect gaseous species. A high local resolution is achieved dynamically at run-time by employing a block-oriented adaptive finite volume method that has been parallelized efficiently for massively parallel machines. Based on a highly resolved two-dimensional simulation we analyze the temporal development of the flow field around a triple point during a detonation cell in great detail. In particular, the influence of the reinitiation phase at the beginning of a detonation cell is discussed. Further on, a successful simulation of the cellular structure in three space-dimensions for the same configuration is presented. The calculation reproduces the experimentally observed three-dimensional mode of propagation called “rectangular-mode-in-phase” with zero phase shift between the transverse waves in both space-directions perpendicular to the detonation front and shows the same oscillation period as the two-dimensional case.