Direct Numerical Simulation of Detonation-Turbulence Interaction

A numerical study was performed to investigate the e ect of pre-shock turbulence on detonation wave properties. A direct numerical simulation was performed on the chemically reactive Navier-Stokes equations using a Runge-Kutta scheme and a fifth-order WENO spatial discretization. A simple one-step chemical kinetics model was used in the study. The main objective of the research is to examine the behavior of the turbulence when subjected to a strong shock with heat release. The evolution of the turbulent Mach number, lengthscales (Taylor microscale and Kolmogorov scale), turbulent kinetic energy, Reynolds stress, auto-correlations with heat release and activation energy is examined. This research is helpful in practical applications such as safe handling of the fuels, promoting detonations for detonation engines etc.. The results show a marked influence of preshock perturbations on the post-shock statistics. The detonation event triggers a self-excited instability, evidenced by the velocity fluctuations and further by space-time correlation functions.The effect of reactivity and fluid acceleration in the post-shock region are examined by comparison with the non-reactive analog.