On the Detonation of Aluminum Suspensions in Air and in Oxygen

The process of initiation and propagation in shock tube of stationary detonations in suspensions of the Al-particles of various size and shape has been investigated experimentally. The Al-suspensions of mean size which is more than 10 μm didn’t ignited neither in air medium nor in the oxygen one. Al-air-suspensions with scales-like particles of thickness about 1 μ and diametrical size 10–15 μm have the same detonation ability as gaseous fuel-air mixture. Spherical Alparticles of diameter 1 μm had some more high detonation ability, i.e. detonation ability of Al-suspensions increases essentially with the particle size decreasing. It was no success to obtain stationary spherical detonation of Al-particles of diameter 3.5 μm dispersed in the oxygen-medium due to the finite size of the cloud.