Jacques Massoni

The present work shows that weak blast waves that are considered as being harmless can turn to become fatal upon their reflections from walls and corners inside a building. In the experimental part, weak blast waves were generated by using an open-end shock tube. A three level building model was placed in vicinity to the open-end of the used shock tube. The evolved wave pattern inside the building rooms was recorded by a sequence of schlieren photographs; also pressure histories were recorded on the rooms' walls. In addition, numerical simulations of the evolved flow field inside the building were conducted. The good agreement obtained between numerical and experimental results shows the potential of the used code for identifying safe and dangerous places inside the building rooms penetrated by the weak blast wave.

To investigate the effects of explosive composition on Al combustion, in particular regarding its oxygen balance, several liquid mixtures are experimentally studied with varying oxygen balance. They are then loaded with Al particles and the velocity of detonation (VOD) is recorded. Computational results with the help of conventional Chapman Jouguet (CJ) codes are compared but fail to reproduce experimental observations. A new multiphase flow model out of thermal equilibrium is then considered. Two options are considered as limiting cases: stiff thermal relaxation and vanishing heat exchange between Al and detonation products. With this last option, predictions are in excellent agreement with the experiments. This suggests that temperature disequilibrium plays a major role in heterogeneous explosives detonation dynamics.

A coupling between a general multiphase flows model and a two-phase dilute flow model is presented. Both models are based on Eulerian approach (two fluids models) and compressible flows are considered. This coupling permits to solve problems in which a multiphase description (involving N phases) is necessary to obtain a good physical behavior of the flow on short times: it corresponds to a given location on the computational domain. Then the flow is developing and far from the location of the initial establishment of the flow, a simpler model can be used, for example a dilute two-phase model one. A methodology for coupling both models is necessary in order to get efficient calculations and a physical consistency. This coupling is not only a challenge regarding the computing resources or the programming. We also require that the wave patterns are correctly transmitted through the coupling interface. We then developed specific Riemann solvers that allow the transmission of acoustic or material waves. We also require the preservation of the conservative quantities such as mass, momentum and energy. The method is checked on ID case: propagation of uniform flows, shock tubes. Multidimensional problem are also presented, showing the efficiency of the coupling methodology regarding CPU time.