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Effect of concentration inhomogeneity on the pulsating instability of hydrogen–oxygen detonations

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Abstract

One-dimensional, unsteady gaseous detonation propagation in a non-homogeneous medium is investigated numerically using the reactive, compressible Navier–Stokes equations with detailed chemistry. The effect of concentration inhomogeneity on the pulsating mode is modeled by a sinusoidal distribution of H2 mole fraction in a H2–O2 mixture. The mixture inhomogeneity, varied by changing the disturbance frequency and amplitude, has significant effects on the pulsating behavior of the detonation due to the interaction of the leading shock with the local gradient. Initially exhibiting a four-period pulsation, the detonation wave entering a non-homogeneous medium can adapt and re-establish into a new propagation mode. For a fixed, large-amplitude sinusoidal disturbance, the period-doubling limit cycle is prone to be destroyed, resulting in a chaotic mode for the propagating detonation front in the non-homogeneous mixture; lowering the disturbance frequency also favors a transition from a periodic pulsation to a chaotic one. When the disturbance amplitude decreases, the propagating detonation can transit quickly to a new pulsating behavior, which tends to be more regular. For a very small amplitude of inhomogeneous variation, it is found that the frequency corresponding to the wavelength close to that of the intrinsic pulsation in the uniform mixture makes the original four-period mode become a double-period mode; for a frequency less than this value, the double-period mode is prone to become more unstable. Consequently, this demonstrates that inhomogeneity could have a positive effect on stabilizing a pulsating detonation.

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Acknowledgements

The research was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 11972090,11732003, and U1830139, the Science and Technology on Transient Impact Laboratory Foundation (Grant No. 6142606182104), and the State Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Technology. WH was in addition supported by a European Commission for the Marie Curie International Fellowships Grant “TurbDDT (Grant No. 793072).”

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    W. J. Ma, C. Wang & W. H. Han

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  1. W. J. Ma
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  2. C. Wang
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Correspondence to C. Wang or W. H. Han.

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Communicated by G. Ciccarelli.

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This paper is based on work that was presented at the 25th International Colloquium on the Dynamics of Explosions and Reactive Systems, Beijing, China, July 28–August 2, 2019.

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Ma, W.J., Wang, C. & Han, W.H. Effect of concentration inhomogeneity on the pulsating instability of hydrogen–oxygen detonations. Shock Waves 30, 703–711 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00193-020-00976-7

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