Promotion of deflagration-to-detonation transition by repeated obstacle rods

Abstract

We experimentally investigated the promotion of deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT) in hydrogen-air mixtures contained in a tube in which straight-shaped rods were installed as obstacles. In the experiments, the number of obstacle rods, their spacing, their blockage ratio, and the equivalence ratio of the hydrogen-air mixture were varied as the governing parameters. The obstacle rods had a spacing of 10 or 20 mm and a blockage ratio of 0.32, 0.41, or 0.51. As a result of an optimization of the obstacle-rod conditions, when fourteen rods, whose blockage ratio was 0.32, were installed in a tube with a spacing of 20 mm and with a hydrogen-air mixture with equivalence ratios from 0.8 to 1.2, the run-up distance to the DDT was shortened to approximately 20 times the tube diameter.

Keywords

• deflagration-to-detonation transition (ddt)
• obstacle-filled tube
• straight rods
• hydrogen-air mixture
• flame acceleration