Hydrogen detonation and detonation transition data from the High-Temperature Combustion Facility

The BNL High-Temperature Combustion Facility (HTCF) is an experimental research tool capable of investigating the effects of initial thermodynamic state on the high-speed combustion characteristic of reactive gas mixtures. The overall experimental program has been designed to provide data to help characterize the influence of elevated gas-mixture temperature (and pressure) on the inherent sensitivity of hydrogen-air-steam mixtures to undergo detonation, on the potential for flames accelerating in these mixtures to transition into detonations, on the effects of gas venting on the flame-accelerating process, on the phenomena of initiation of detonations in these mixtures by jets of hot reactant products, and on the capability of detonations within a confined space to transmit into another, larger confined space. This paper presents results obtained from the completion of two of the overall test series that was designed to characterize high-speed combustion phenomena in initially high-temperature gas mixtures. These two test series are the intrinsic detonability test series and the deflagration-to-detonation (DDT) test series. A brief description of the facility is provided below