Verification of hydrodynamic simulation codes for modeling the effects of curvature on detonation propagation.

The propagation speed of a curved detonation front is an important

property to characterize the performance of a High Explosive (HE). Data

on the detonation speed in finite dimensional charges is often used to

calibrate models of HE combustion. Simulating these experiments can be

computationally expensive and is often the computational bottleneck in

such calibrations. Two different approaches to modeling this phenomenon

are considered: the first uses an assumption of large curvature to

simplify the problem into a system of Ordinary Differential Equations

(ODE) in a single dimension, the second solves a system of partial

differential equations in two dimensions. The former approach is orders

of magnitude faster than the latter but is only applicable for large

curvatures, while the latter has no such limitations. There are three

parts to this verification study. First, the implementation of the two

codes are verified against exact analytic solutions for single-step

Arrhenius kinetics. Second, a solution verification exercise is

performed on both codes to understand the effect of spatial

discretization on the error in the detonation speed. Finally, the two

codes are compared to identify the regime where the faster ODE solver an

be used with acceptable accuracy.