DETONATION

Detonation

Detonation involves a supersonic exothermic front accelerating through a medium that eventually drives a shock front propagating directly in front of it. Detonations are observed in both conventional solid and liquid explosives, as well as in reactive gases. The velocity of detonations in solid and liquid explosives is much higher than that in gaseous ones, which allows the wave system to be observed with greater detail .

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detonation

Noun

  1. An explosion or sudden report made by the near-instantaneous decomposition or combustion of unstable substances as, the detonation of gun cotton. Specifically, combustion that spreads supersonically via shock compression.
  2. Engine knocking, an improper combustion in internal combustion engines


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: detonation
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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