Formation of the preheated zone ahead of a propagating flame and the mechanism underlying the deflagration-to-detonation transition

The Letter presents analytical, numerical and experimental studies of the mechanism underlying the deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT). Insight into how, when, and where DDT occurs is obtained by analyzing analytically and by means of multidimensional numerical simulations dynamics of a flame accelerating in a tube with no-slip walls. It is shown that the deflagration-to-detonation transition exhibits three separate stages of evolution corroborating majority experimental observations. During the first stage flame accelerates and generates shocks far ahead of the flame front. During the second stage the flame slows down, shocks are formed in the immediate proximity of the flame front and the preheated zone ahead of the flame front is created. The third stage is self-restructuring of the steep temperature profile within the flame, formation of a reactivity gradient and the actual formation of the detonation wave itself. The mechanism for the detonation wave formation, given an appropriate formation of the preheated zone, seems to be universal and involves a reactivity gradient formed from the initially steep flame temperature profile in the presence of the preheated zone. The developed theory and numerical simulations are found to be well consistent with extensive experiments of the DDT in hydrogen-oxygen and ethylene-oxygen mixtures in tubes with smooth and rough walls.