LAUSR

Abstract This review generalizes the results of integrated studies, which showed that, contrary to previously accepted concepts, the gas-phase processes of combustion, explosion, and detonation of gases at atmospheric and elevated pressures occur by chain mechanisms and under laws of nonisothermal chain reactions. Owing to the determination of the chain nature of these processes, their previously unexplainable main characteristics were explained. The law of the temperature dependence of the rates of chain combustion reaction was derived, which determines features of the kinetics and macrokinetics of these processes, including chain thermal explosion, a necessary step of deflagration-to-detonation transition. Scientific foundations and chemical methods of control of various combustion modes were developed. Examples of using these methods to prevent explosions in mines and suppress deflagration-to-detonation transition in power units were presented.