The evolution of a detonation wave in a variable cross-sectional chamber

A two-dimensional numerical simulation has been performed to study the interaction of a gaseous detonation wave with obliquely inclined surfaces in a variable cross-sectional chamber. The weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) numerical scheme with a relatively low resolution grid is employed. A detailed elementary chemical reaction model with 9 species and 19 elementary reactions is used for a stoichiometric oxy-hydrogen mixture diluted with argon. In this work, we study the effect of area expansion and contraction on the main/gross features of the detonation cellular structures in the presence of detonation reflection, diffraction and localized explosion. The result shows that there exists a transition region as the detonation wave propagates through the converging/diverging chamber. Within the transition region, the initial regular detonation cells become distorted and irregular before they re-obtain their regularity. While the ultimate regular cell size and the length of the transition region are strongly affected by the converging/diverging angle, the width/length ratio of the cells is fairly independent of it. A localized explosion near the wall is found as the detonation wave propagates in the diverging chamber.