Detonation Failure and Reinitiation Across an Inert Gap

The critical phenomena of the transmission of a gaseous detonation wave across an inert gap of finite length are computationally simulated in both one and two-dimensions. The system is modeled using the reactive Euler equations with single step Arrhenius kinetics. Downstream from the gap the detonation re-establishes the intrinsic structure corresponding to the mixture's chemical and thermodynamic properties. However, at some critical gap length the detonation fails to be reinitiated downstream. This critical length is characteristic of the reactive mixture and is related to the intrinsic length scale of the detonation. Simulations are performed over a range of reactive mixture conditions to investigate this correlation. In one-dimension the intrinsic length scale is the reaction zone length of the steady Zel'dovich-von Neumann-Döring (ZND) wave. Comparison of results in one and two-dimensions allows further investigation into the importance of cellular dynamics and multidimensional effects on the detonation reinitiation downstream. To this end, correlation with statistically determined dynamic detonation parameters such as cell size and regularity is also considered in two-dimensions.