The Influence of Transport Phenomena on the Cellular Detonation of Hydrogen–Air Mixture

We carry out numerical simulations in a two-dimensional approximation to study the influence of transport phenomena on the formation and propagation of cellular detonation in stoichiometric hydrogen–air mixtures within channels of various constant widths. We present results of three series of calculations in which the flow is described by different equations: by the Euler equations in the first series, by the Navier–Stokes equations with no-flow boundary conditions on the channel walls in the second, and by the Navier–Stokes equations with no-slip boundary conditions in the third. To describe the chemical reactions, we use a well-known one-step chemical kinetics model. The computations were performed using a custom solver, rhoReactingCentralFoam, built on the open-source OpenFOAM libraries. This solver combines the RKF45 combustion solver with the second-order Kurganov–Tadmor gas flow scheme. Using numerical detonation cell patterns, which are analogous to triple-point trajectory traces observed on soot-covered channel walls in experiments, we obtain data on the influence of viscosity on the cell size as a function of the channel width and classify cellular detonation waves.