Numerical Modeling of the Energy Release of Aluminized Oxyacetylene Detonations
| dc.contributor.author | Walters, Iliana Rose | en |
| dc.contributor.committeechair | Jacques, Eric Jean-Yves | en |
| dc.contributor.committeemember | Case, Scott W. | en |
| dc.contributor.committeemember | Young, Gregory | en |
| dc.contributor.department | Civil and Environmental Engineering | en |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-01-28T09:00:12Z | en |
| dc.date.available | 2025-01-28T09:00:12Z | en |
| dc.date.issued | 2025-01-27 | en |
| dc.description.abstract | This research explored the energy release of pure oxyacetylene and aluminized oxyacetylene detonations and their blast efficiency. A numerical model was developed using blastFoam to accurately capture shock wave parameters using a compressed gas balloon method. For this method, the explosive was replaced by a compressed gas balloon with calibrated initial conditions to replicate the explosive's blast characteristics. The numerical model was validated with experimental data from 0.11 m3 oxyacetylene detonations acquired by Cheney (2024) in the large-scale shock tube research facility at VA Tech (VTSTRF). A series of studies were carried out in this process of model development including: the preliminary building of the model domain with the shock tube geometry and approximation of specific energy of oxyacetylene, a symmetry study, an all-direction mesh refinement study, and an x-direction mesh refinement study. The goal of these studies was to develop a model that accurately captures the energy release from the 0.11 m3 detonation in a sufficiently quick manner. Once the numerical model was developed, it was used to determine the energy release of detonations with varying oxyacetylene volumes and H-10 aluminum concentrations as compared to data collected in the VTSTRF by Cheney (2024) and Kamide and Jacques (2024). A comparison of energy values was carried out against a traditional approach of blast scaling. Similar relationships were found between aluminum concentration and total energy of detonation and blast efficiency. The blastFoam numerical model enables a simpler method of capturing energy release from complex non-ideal detonations, requiring input dependent only on specific energy of the balloon and balloon volume. | en |
| dc.description.abstractgeneral | This research explored the energy release of pure oxyacetylene and aluminized oxyacetylene detonations and their blast efficiency. A numerical model was developed using blastFoam, a detonation-specific add-on to OpenFoam-9. The shock wave parameters were captured using a compressed gas balloon method. This numerical modeling method was chosen for its simplicity, quick runtime, and ease of determining total energy in the balloon. For this method, the explosive was replaced by a compressed gas balloon with calibrated initial conditions that replicate the explosive's blast characteristics. These blast wave characteristics include the pressure-time history and peak pressure and impulse at the pressure sensors. The numerical model was validated with experimental data from 0.11 m3 oxyacetylene detonations acquired by Cheney (2024) in the large-scale shock tube research facility at VA Tech (VTSTRF). A series of studies were carried out in this process of model development including: the preliminary building of the model domain with the shock tube geometry, boundary conditions, and approximation of specific energy of oxyacetylene, a symmetry study, an all-direction mesh refinement study, and an x-direction mesh refinement study. The goal of these studies was to develop a model that accurately captures the energy release from the 0.11 m3 detonation in a reasonably quick manner. Once the numerical model was developed, it was used to determine the energy release of detonations with varying oxyacetylene volumes and H-10 aluminum concentrations as compared to data collected in the VTSTRF by Cheney (2024) and Kamide and Jacques (2024), respectively. A comparison of total detonation energy was carried out against a traditional approach of blast scaling. Similar relationships were found between aluminum concentration and total energy of detonation and blast efficiency. As aluminum mass concentration increased, the total detonation energy increased and blast efficiency decreased. The blastFoam compressed gas balloon numerical model enables a simpler method of accurately capturing energy release from complex non-ideal detonations, requiring input dependent only on specific energy of the balloon and balloon volume. Future work includes applying this numerical model to different aluminum particle sizes and multimodal aluminum particle distributions. | en |
| dc.description.degree | Master of Science | en |
| dc.format.medium | ETD | en |
| dc.identifier.other | vt_gsexam:42161 | en |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10919/124405 | en |
| dc.language.iso | en | en |
| dc.publisher | Virginia Tech | en |
| dc.rights | In Copyright | en |
| dc.rights.uri | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ | en |
| dc.subject | Numerical Modeling | en |
| dc.subject | Blast Efficiency | en |
| dc.subject | Detonation Energy Release | en |
| dc.title | Numerical Modeling of the Energy Release of Aluminized Oxyacetylene Detonations | en |
| dc.type | Thesis | en |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Civil Engineering | en |
| thesis.degree.grantor | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | en |
| thesis.degree.level | masters | en |
| thesis.degree.name | Master of Science | en |
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