The thickness of detonation waves visualised by slight obstacles

The reflection of detonation waves from slight obstacles, which hardly disturb the wave propagation, is observed by time-resolved schlieren photography. The following stoichiometric mixtures are used: pure and argon-diluted hydrogen-oxygen, hydrogen-air, acetylene-oxygen, and acetylene-air. Initial pressures are varied such that cell widths range from 1.4 up to 108 mm, which is twice the side length of the square cross-section of the tube. The trajectories of the incident and the reflected waves in the x,t-plane are used to determine lower limit values for the wave thickness. The considerable influences of the obstacle shape and of the evaluation method on the results are discussed in detail, and error sources are analyzed. The method has been improved since a previous publication by the authors. The ratio of the lower limit values to the cell width spreads from 0.4 to 0.8 in the medium cell size range. It decreases with increasing marginality and seems to increase at small scale. A unique correlation between the lower limit value and the tube diameter, both referred to the cell size, that was proposed earlier in the literature has to be refused. The velocities of the reflected waves are presented as additional information on the post-detonation wave state. The sonic transition is discussed theoretically, enhancing the stream tube model, and practically, based on detailed observations for marginal detonations.Received: 29 April 2003, Accepted: 20 October 2003, Published online: 3 February 2004PACS: 47.40.-xCorrespondence to: M. Weber