Curvature effects on detonations with mole decrement reactions

We analyze the structure and stability of weakly curved, quasi- steady, self-sustaining detonations having a one-step, non mole- reserving chemical reaction. For a steady planar detonation, a sufficiently large mole decrease during the reaction causes the rate of heat release by chemical reaction to reach a maximum at a point of incomplete reaction. It is this feature which allows the construction of quasi- steady, weakly curved, converging detonation solutions, in addition to the previously identified diverging wave solutions. We construct the quasi-steady detonation velocity against front curvature relationships for converging waves with mole-decrement reactions. The stability of such solutions is investigated by direct numerical simulation of the imploding detonations