Gas compression moderates flame acceleration in deflagration-to-detonation transition

TL;DR

This paper investigates how gas compression influences flame acceleration during deflagration-to-detonation transition, showing that compression moderates acceleration and can lead to detonation, with implications for safety and combustion control.

Contribution

It provides an analytical and numerical study revealing how gas compression moderates flame acceleration and facilitates transition to detonation in smooth-wall and obstructed channels.

Findings

Gas compression moderates flame acceleration rate.

Flame acceleration occurs in three stages: exponential, moderated, and saturation.

Deflagration-to-detonation transition is demonstrated.

Abstract

The effect of gas compression at the developed stages of flame acceleration in smooth-wall and obstructed channels is studied. We demonstrate analytically that gas compression moderates the acceleration rate and perform numerical simulations within the problem of flame transition to detonation. It is shown that flame acceleration undergoes three distinctive stages: 1) initial exponential acceleration in the incompressible regime, 2) moderation of the acceleration process due to gas compression, so that the exponential acceleration state goes over to a much slower one, 3) eventual saturation to a steady (or statistically-steady) high-speed deflagration velocity, which may be correlated with the Chapman-Jouguet deflagration speed. The possibility of deflagration-to-detonation transition is demonstrated.