The spherical detonation (Q2277624)

The author considers the diverging detonation by the analysis of a combination of phase plane analysis, bifurcation theory, and matched asymptotic expansions. He first shows that to leading order in the shock curvature, the detonation may be modeled by a system of autonomous differential equations in space, depending on curvature and wave speed as parameters, and then analyses the model equations by starting with the solution of a free boundary problem for the sonic transition surface, which terminates the subsonic region behind the shock, and shows that an appropriate critical point exists and solves the sonic free boundary problem. Moreover an asymptotic approximation for the detonation which is valid for shock radii that are large with respect to the width of the reaction zone is derived by a bifurcation analysis. It is an extended version of the author's former works.