Numerical Simulations of High Speed, Reacting, Multiphase Flows

While gaseous detonations are well studied and documented by the scientific community, detonations propagating through liquid fogs and sprays of fuel are less understood. Multiphase detonations develop characteristics that are more complicated to predict than single phase reactions. Newer technologies such as Pulse and Rotating Detonation Engines (PDE and RDE) aim to utilize common liquid propellants and drive a need to understand the multiphase detonation process better. This presentation will focus on the numerical results of liquid spray detonations with a primary focus on n-dodecane as a fuel. The effects of droplet sizes, distributions, evaporation, and breakup will be discussed in detail. The multiphase results will be compared to data from idealized, single phase simulations and results from other simulation codes. The software used to generate this data is the FLASH code, in part developed by the Flash Center at the University of Chicago, and modified for this problem to include an induction parameter model for single step reactions and active, Lagrangian particles using the Particle-in-Cell (PIC) method.