• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.314-318
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• 2006

The interest on the detonation in small tubes, which can be applied to the ignition devices of propulsion system, is increasing. However, the propagation dynamics of detonation waves in small tubes has not been investigated clearly yet. In the present experiments, propagations of detonation waves in stoichiometric propane-oxygen mixture through transparent tubes were recorded using a high speed camera and average velocities were measured as well. In terms of average velocity, there exists a transition regime where the waves show smooth transition from the normal Chapman-Jouguet(CJ) detonation to the low velocity detonation$(\sim0.5V_{CJ})$ along the decreasing initial pressure. In this transition regime, the detonation waves are highly unstable and show cyclic or intermittent longitudinal velocity fluctuation.