Numerical Experiments in a Shock Tunnel with Intermediate and Detonation Chambers

Abstract

The study is aimed at developing a numerical counterpart of a three-chamber shock tube. The shock tube of the Institute of Mechanics of Moscow State University, which is started up by means of burning oxyhydrogen mixture in a high-pressure chamber, is chosen as a real prototype. The model is based on the time-dependent two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations governing axisymmetric flows of a multicomponent reacting gas with account for diffusion. Test problems of the initiation of high-speed shock waves in air are formulated and solved numerically. The calculations are performed for the combustion of oxyhydrogen mixture in the regimes of both conventional and detonation combustion. It is shown that the proposed digital model of a three-chamber shock tube allows one to obtain results similar with the experimental data, when burning an oxyhydrogen mixture in the mode of conventional combustion. According to the calculations, detonation combustion of an oxyhydrogen mixture increases the velocity of the generated shock waves in all chambers of the setup.