Two-dimensional detailed numerical simulation of ammonia/hydrogen/air detonation: hydrogen concentration effects and transverse detonation wave structure

Numerical simulations on ammonia/hydrogen/air detonation are performed using a detailed reaction model to investigate the cellular instability and detonation dynamics as a function of hydrogen content. The UT-LCS model that includes 32 species and 213 elementary reactions is used in the present simulations. The fifth-order target compact nonlinear scheme captured the unstable detonation dynamics and the complicated flow structure including the propagation of a sub-transverse wave. The simulation performed with different hydrogen dilutions shows that the detonation propagates at the Chapman–Jouguet velocity for all cases, and the cell size for the ammonia/hydrogen mixing ratio α = 0.3 becomes approximately 10 times larger than that for α = 1.0 (hydrogen/air mixture). A transverse detonation produces a finescale cellular structure on the computed maximum pressure history. This complex shock formation is similar to those of a spinning detonation and two-dimensional propane/oxygen detonation. The cellular irregularity increases with decreasing hydrogen content because ammonia destabilizes the detonation cellular structure with a reduced activation energy of more than approximately 8.