Numerical Investigation of Shock-Induced Combustion of Coal-H2-Air mixtures in a Unwrapped Non-Premixed Detonation Channel
Marc Salvadori, Ian B. Dunn, Jonathan Sosa, Suresh Menon, Kareem A. Ahmed
Abstract
Rotating detonation engines (RDEs) have been shown to be viable pressure-gain combustion devices. A variety of reactants have been tested, of which the most prominent is the non-premixed system that employs hydrogen-air mixtures due to its high detonability. Experimentally, some researchers \cite{Bykovskii_2006,Bykovskii_2012} have also evaluated two-phase mixtures such as liquid or solid particulates to produce self-sustained rotating detonations, but there is lack of numerical studies to support such findings. In this study, a Eulerian-Eulerian (EE) dense particle formulation is used to model the dispersed phase in detonation type flows. Reduced kinetics is implemented for both gas-phase mixtures and for coal particle combustion. Studies include detonation in stoichiometric and non-stoichiometric hydrogen-air mixtures, and heterogeneous detonations in solid reactive particles of aluminum and/or carbon. Comparison between the computed results and available data show reasonable agreement. Finally, a non-premixed detonation channel consisting of an unwrapped array of eight injectors as in the RDE is simulated using the EE approach to demonstrate its capability. The effects of mixing, particle volume fraction and size is examined to understand the behavior of the detonation coupling with reacting particles and the associated heat release.