| Shock tube experiments were performed to measure the conductivity of the plasma of detonation products for potential application in hybrid pulse detonation engines. Detonations of hydrogen/oxygen, hydrogen/air and propane/oxygen established Chapman-Jouguet detonations. The effects of reactants, driver gas, tube configuration, and seed on detonation phenomenon were discussed.; The cross-correlation technique was introduced to estimate the uncertainties originated from the shock speed determination. It was found that the uncertainty due to simple peak-to-peak time measurement might bring about considerable uncertainty in conductivity due to its strong dependency on the thermodynamic properties.; The experiments indicated that seed such as potassium carbonate did not appear to significantly increase the conductivity over the unseeded gases. The measured conductivity was found to be smaller than the value obtained assuming chemical equilibrium. The reasons for this anomalous behavior were attributed to incomplete mixing of the reactants, poor evaporation of seed and non-uniform seed distribution. |
