Numerical simulation of flame acceleration and deflagration-to-detonation transition of ethylene in channels

Ethylene (C₂H₄) is a hydrocarbon fuel and widely used in chemical industry, however, ethylene is highly flammable and therefore presents a serious fire and explosion hazard. This work is initiated by addressing the hazard assessment of ethylene mixtures in different scale channels (d = 5 mm, 10 mm and 20 mm) from the aspect of flame acceleration (FA) and deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT) by using large eddy simulation (LES) method coupled with the artificially thickened flame (ATF) approach. The fifth order local characteristics based weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) conservative finite difference scheme is employed to solve the governing equations. The numerical results confirm that flame velocity increase rapidly at the beginning stage in three channels, and the flame acceleration rate is slower in the subsequent stage, afterwards, the flame velocity has an abrupt increase, and the onset of detonation occurs. Due to the fact that wall effect is significant in the narrow channel (e.g.,5 mm), especially in the ignition stage of the flame, flames have different shapes in wider channels (10 mm and 20 mm) and narrow channel (5 mm). Both the pressure and temperature profiles confirm DDT run-up distances are 0.251 m, 0.203 m and 0.161 m in 20 mm, 10 mm and 5 mm channels, respectively, which indicates that a shorter run-up distance is required in narrower channel. The cellular detonation structures for the ethylene-air mixture in different channels indicate that multi-headed detonation structures can be found in 20 mm channel, as the channel width decreases to 10 mm, detonation has a single-headed spinning structure, as the width is further reduced to 5 mm, only large longitudinal oscillation of the pressure can be observed.