Detonation waves in a reactive supersonic flow

A supersonic hydrogen—air flow is studied in detail, in particular, the fields of gas-dynamic parameters and chemical homogeneity of the mixture in various cross sections of the duct. The processes of excitation and propagation of a detonation wave in the downstream and upstream directions are considered. The detonation-wave velocity with respect to the mixture flow is found to differ from the nominal Chapman—Jouguet velocity for a quiescent mixture: the detonation-wave velocity is higher if the wave moves upstream and lower if the wave moves downstream. Some hypotheses on the reasons for these deviations of the experimentally measured velocity from the nominal value are given. __________ Translated from Fizika Goreniya i Vzryva, Vol. 42, No. 5, pp. 85–100, September–October, 2006.