The Detonation Phenomenon

This book introduces the detonation phenomenon in explosives. It is ideal for engineers and graduate students with a background in thermodynamics and fluid mechanics. The material is mostly qualitative, aiming to illustrate the physical aspects of the phenomenon. Classical idealized theories of detonation waves are presented first. These permit detonation speed, gas properties ahead of and behind the detonation wave, and the distribution of fluid properties within the detonation wave itself to be determined. Subsequent chapters describe in detail the real unstable structure of a detonation wave. One-, two-, and three-dimensional computer simulations are presented along with experimental results using various experimental techniques. The important effects of confinement and boundary conditions and their influence on the propagation of a detonation are also discussed. The final chapters cover the various ways detonation waves can be formed and provide a review of the outstanding problems and future directions in detonation research.

1. Introduction; 2. Gasdynamic theory; 3. Dynamics of detonation products; 4. Laminar structure of detonations; 5. Unstable detonations: numerical; 6. Unstable detonations: experimental; 7. Influence of boundary conditions; 8. Deflagration to detonation transition; 9. Direct initiation of detonations; Epilogue.

Professor John H. S. Lee is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University. His research areas are in combustion, detonations and shock wave physics, and explosion dynamics; he has been carrying out fundamental and applied research in these areas for the past 40 years. He is a consultant and has served on numerous government and industrial advisory committees on explosion hazards and safety since the late 1960s. He is a recipient of the silver medal from the Combustion Institute (1980), the Dionizy Smolenski Medal from the Polish Academy of Sciences (1988), and the Nuna Manson gold medal (1991) for his outstanding contributions to the fundamentals and applied aspects of explosion and detonation phenomena. He is also a two-time recipient of the Faculty Outstanding Teaching Award (1989 and 1995) and was elected as honorary professor of the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2003) and recipient of the Outstanding Alumni Award of the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong (2003). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.