Investigation of the structure of detonation waves in gases

The application of advanced compensating methods of photography has made it possible to obtain an undistorted picture of the luminosity fields and location of shocks in the region of a spinning detonation head. The essential elements are a transverse front moving into gas precompressed by the primary shock. Calculation of the flow near triple points that appear due to interaction of the transverse front and the primary shock has been made. The correctness of the accepted hydrodynamic configuration has been confirmed by pressure-profile measurements with small piezoceramic gauges. The specific configurations, similar to spinning detonation, have been revealed in multi-headed detonation in a flat channel. Luminosity of the transverse fronts ceases only in unstable regimes associated with the local or general attenuation of the detonation wave. The analysis of the transverse wave regularities in three-dimensional cases allows one to assume that burning in detonation waves is again caused mainly by the transverse waves. Further study of transverse waves has permitted us to obtain a long-duration detonation process—a continuous detonation. The basis of this new process is a transverse wave rotating in a circular channel.