Detonation suppression by porous obstacles

Details

Supervisors

Papalexandris, Miltiadis

Faculty

Ecole polytechnique de Louvain

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur civil mécanicien, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

The aim of this master’s thesis is to investigate numerically the suppression of accidental detonations by highly porous obstacles. Numerical simulations will therefore focus on the compressible flow behavior of a two-phase mixture (gas and solid matrix of the porous medium) based on a thermomechanical model for flows in superimposed fluid/solid regions. Simulations are performed using an algorithm and software written by Prof. Papalexandris’ research team. The results show that in most cases, porous obstacles succeed in decoupling the detonation from the reaction zone, leading to their suppression. This shows that the force exerted by the porous material on the reactive mixture acts as a sink of momentum and kinetic energy. By contrast, a specific configuration of biperiodically arranged blocks, not covering the entire cross-section, does not predict whether detonation is eliminated or not. Nevertheless, the shockwave is weakened by the interphasial force inflicted by the obstacles and, therefore, propagates as a low-speed detonation without quenching.