A review of detonation initiation techniques for insensitive dense methane-oxygen-nitrogen mixtures

¹ Laboratoire de Combustion et de Détonique (UPR 9028 du CNRS) - ENSMA Poitiers, France
² French-German Research Institute - ISL - Saint Louis, France
³ University of Washington - AERP - Seattle, Wa, USA

Received: 8 January 1997
Revised: 4 November 1997
Accepted: 13 January 1998
Published online: 15 May 1998

Abstract

This paper is aimed at providing some data on the detonability of methane mixtures at a high initial pressure. The relevant work that has been performed so far was based on a conventional source of ignition, i.e., a blasting cap. Following these initiation experiments at the French German Research Institute (ISL), two sets of experiments were performed in CH₄/Air mixtures, at initial pressures in the range of 0.1 to 3.7 MPa, at the University of Washington (UW): (1) using a piston that directly enters the test section in the velocity range of 1100–1800 ms⁻¹ and (2) the piston impacts an intermediate section of CH₄/O₂. An additional series of experiments was performed using an initiator stage of stoichiometric CH₄/O₂ ignited by a 150 J conventional fuse cap.