Compressible Multiphase Reactive Flow in Granular Explosives

Faculty:  Chris Wahle

Summary:

The modeling and analysis of compressible multi-phase reactive flow in granular materials, and its applications in the context of deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT) in high-energy condensed-phase explosives, is examined in this project.  Granular explosives are composed of chemically reactive solid particles with a compressible gas occupying the pores between the solid grains.  The aim is to address safety issues related to the manufacturing, storage, transportation, and employment of industrial explosives.   The model describing DDT involves a system of seven nonlinear hyperbolic partial differential equations.   There are balance laws of mass, momentum, and energy for each phase, and a compaction law describing the evolution of the solid volume fraction.  We can examine the evolution and structure of detonation waves admitted by the model.

Publications:

1. A Study of Detonation Evolution and Structure for a Model of Compressible Two-Phase Reactive Flow, D.W. Schwendeman, C.W. Wahle and A.K. Kapila, Combustion Theory and Modelling, 2008, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 159-204.


2. The Riemann Problem and a High-Resolution Godunov Method for a Model of Compressible Two-Phase Flow, D.W. Schwendeman, C.W. Wahle and A.K. Kapila, Journal of Computational Physics, 2006, 212, pp. 490-526.