D’Yakov–Kontorovich instability in planar reactive shocks

Abstract

The standard D’Yakov and Kontorovich (DK) instability occurs when a planar shock wave is perturbed and then oscillates with constant amplitude in the long-time regime. As a direct result, pressure perturbations generated directly behind the shock propagate downstream as non-evanescent sound waves, an effect known as spontaneous acoustic emission (SAE). To reach the DK regime, the slope of the Rankine–Hugoniot curve in the post-shock state must satisfy certain conditions, which have usually been related to non-ideal equations of state. This study reports that the DK instability and SAE can also occur in shocks moving in perfect gases when exothermic effects occur. In particular, a planar detonation, initially perturbed with a wavelength much larger than the detonation thickness, may exhibit constant-amplitude oscillations when the amount of heat released is positively correlated with the shock strength, a phenomenon that resembles the Rayleigh thermoacoustic instability. The opposite strongly damped oscillation regime is reached when the shock strength and the change in the heat released are negatively correlated. This study employs a linear perturbation model to describe the long-time and transient evolution of the detonation front, which is assumed to be infinitely thin, and the sound and entropy–vorticity fields generated downstream.