ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the various types of infinite, plane, steady-state, one-dimensional flows involving exothermic chemical reactions, in which the properties become uniform as x → ± ∞. It provides all of the information that is required concerning detonation waves, except their speed of propagation. The Rankine-Hugoniot relations are the equations relating the properties on the upstream and downstream sides of these combustion waves. The chapter describes the general Rankine-Hugoniot equations and explores the Hugoniot curve for a simplified system is studied in detail in order to delineate explicitly the various burning regimes. The essential characteristics of the Hugoniot curve are most easily illustrated by studying a particular simple system. Combustion waves are termed detonation waves or deflagration waves according to the branch of the Hugoniot curve upon which the final condition falls. Waves with end states lying along line DE are weak deflagrations and those with end states on line EF are strong deflagrations.
