Investigation of the Detonation Waves Propagation in High Explosives and Gaseous Mixtures, Using DSD Theory and Level Set Method

In this paper the propagation of detonation waves in high explosives as well as gaseous mixtures are studied by combining the DSD theory and the level set method. In first step, the D-κ and relations for high explosive materials and gaseous mixtures are obtained. Then, using level set method, the detonation front is tracked in different geometries. A good agreement between DSD results and direct numerical simulations is observed for high explosive materials, where the curvature has an important role in detonation dynamic. Nevertheless, for gaseous mixtures the agreement is not as good as high explosives. In order to study the critical diameter problem in gaseous mixtures, the problem of detonation wave diffracting from a channel into an unconfined space is investigated. In this problem, the detonation failure criterion, based on the critical curvature concept, is utilized. A considerable difference between critical diameters which had been predicted by DSD theory and the experimental results is observed. The results indicate that the critical diameter in gaseous compositions (where the unsteadiness and chemical kinetic are more crucial than the curvature) is often underestimated by the DSD theory.