Uniform Movements Research Articles

Photographic investigation of flame movements in gaseous explosions. Parts IV, V and VI

In Part III of our previous memoir* upon “ Flame Movements in Carbonic Oxide-Oxygen Explosions ” experiments were described showing certain effects of superimposed “ shock waves ” upon flame-velocities up to the development of detonation in such explosions. Also the phenomenon of “ spin ” in the detonation of carbonic oxide-oxygen mixtures, first observed in 1926 by C. CAMPBELL and D. W. WOODHEAD, was illustrated, but its further discussion deferred pending the accumulation of more experimental evidence. In reviewing the experiments in ‘Nature’ the late Professor H. B. DIXON said they had revealed how shock waves catching up an accelerating flame, and vice versa , may impose a succession of “ uniform movements ” upon it, and how such waves ahead of the flame may set up “ detonation ” in explosions, a point of which, though formerly he had doubted, he had now been quite convinced.