Unsteady detonation

This work is centered on steady and unsteady detonation waves. This work is concerned with plane one-dimensional waves with onestep irreversible reactions of the ARrhenius kind. Generic problem is considered in the transition from deflagration to detonation. IT is modelled as the overtaking of a steady deflagration wave by a steady shock wave. Such a collision produces a detonation wave (as well as a contact discontinuity, a back shock and sometimes a rarefaction wave). Here the restriction to small heat release is removed. It is shown that a detonation wave thus produced can never be steady for any amount of heat release. The analysis was done in the limit of large activation energy. The governing equation for a detonation was developed in the limit of large activation energy and (subsequently) small heat release. Steady detonation solutions were investigated and a linear stability analysis was caried out. Various numerical techniques were used to solve the Stefan problem of detonation theory.