Interactions between a propagating detonation wave and circular water cloud in hydrogen/air mixture

Interactions between a propagating hydrogen/air detonation wave and circular water cloud are studied. Eulerian-Lagrangian method involving two-way gas-droplet coupling is applied. Different droplet (diam-eter, concentration) and cloud (diameter) properties are considered. Results show that droplet size, con-centration and cloud radius have significant effects on peak pressure trajectory of the detonation wave. Three propagation modes are identified: perturbed propagation, leeward re-detonation, and detonation extinction. Leeward re-detonation is analyzed from unsteady evolutions of gas and liquid droplet quanti-ties. The detonation is re-initiated by a local hot spot from shock focusing of upper and lower diffracted detonations. Disintegration of water droplets proceeds when the detonation wave crosses the cloud. In addition, detonation extinction is featured by quickly fading peak pressure trajectories when the deto-nation wave passes the larger cloud, and no local autoignition occurs in the shock focusing area. Evolu-tions of thermochemical structures from the shocked area in an extinction process are also studied. The transfer rates of mass, energy and momentum of detonation success and failure are analyzed. Moreover, parametric studies demonstrate that the critical cloud size to quench a detonation decreases when the droplet concentration is increased. However, when the droplet concentration is beyond 0.84 kg/m3, the critical cloud size is negligibly influenced due to small droplets. Two-phase fluid interfacial instability is observed, and the mechanism of cloud evolution is studied with the distributions of droplet, vorticity, density / pressure gradient magnitudes, and gas velocity. Analysis confirms that velocity difference (due to two-phase momentum exchange) dominates the formation of large-scale vortices from the southern and northern poles, corresponding to Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. Moreover, the influences of effective Atwood number on the evolutions of cloud morphology, vorticity, and gas velocity are evaluated. Results show that higher droplet concentration results in wider droplet dispersion range due to larger vortices. (c) 2022 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Interactions between a propagating hydrogen/air detonation wave and a circular water cloud were investigated. The study examined the effects of droplet and cloud properties on the peak pressure trajectory of the detonation wave. Three propagation modes were identified: perturbed propagation, leeward re-detonation, and detonation extinction. The analysis also explored two-phase fluid interfacial instability and evaluated the influences of droplet concentration on cloud morphology and vorticity evolution.