Calculation of linear detonation instability: one-dimensional instability of plane detonation

Abstract

The detonation stability problem is studied by a normal mode approach which greatly simplifies the calculation of linear instability of detonation in contrast to the Laplace transform procedure used by Erpenbeck. The method of solution, for an arbitrary parameter set, is a shooting method which can be automated to generate easily the required information about instability. The condition on the perturbations applied at the end of the reaction zone is shown to be interpreted as either a boundedness condition or an acoustic radiation condition. Continuous and numerically exact neutral stability curves and boundaries are given as well as growth rates and eigenfunctions which are calculated for the first time. Our calculations include the Chapman–Jouguet (CJ) case which presents no special difficulty. We give representative results for our detonation model and summarize the one-dimensional stability behaviour in parameter space. Comparison with previous results for the neutral stability boundaries and approximations to the unstable discrete spectrum are given. Parametric studies of the unstable, discrete spectrum's dependence on the activation energy and the overdrive factor are given with the implications for interpreting the physical mechanism of instability observed in experiments. This first paper is restricted to the case of one-dimensional linear instability. Extensions to transverse disturbances will be treated in a sequel.