Shock Development and Transition to Detonation Initiated by Burning in Porous Propellant Beds

Abstract

This report summarizes the analyses of deflagration to detonation transition (DDT) occurring in a packed bed of granular, high energy solid propellant. A reactive two-phase flow model of this phenomena is solved by utilizing a Lax-Wendroff finite differencing technique. A brief overview of the well-known shock jump conditions for one-dimensional, one-phase flow with heat addition is reported, and a similar analysis for one-dimensional, two-phase reactive flow is discussed. Improvements made in the gas phase nonideal equation of state, gas permeability, and numerical integration techniques allow for the prediction of a transition to a steady detonation from initiation by deflagration. Analyses are presented that clearly indicate the effect of the propellant physical and chemical parameters on the predicted run-up length to detonation. Predictions of this run-up length to detonation are presented as a function of propellant chemical energy, burning rate, bed porosity, and granulation (size). Limited comparison with actual DDT data in the literature indicates good qualitative agreement with these predictions.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 1981
Accession Number
ADA102030

Entities

People

  • Herman Krier
  • P. Barry Butler

Organizations

  • University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Burning Rate
  • Combustion
  • Energetic Materials
  • Equations Of State
  • Heat Transfer
  • High Energy
  • Materials
  • Numbers
  • Numerical Integration
  • Propellants
  • Reynolds Number
  • Solid Propellants
  • Specific Heat
  • Specific Volume
  • Steady State
  • Two Phase Flow

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Finite Element Method (FEM) for solving Partial Differential Equations (PDEs)
  • Rocket Propulsion.