COMPUTATIONAL COMPARISON OF SHOCK WAVE PROPOAGATION IN EXPLOSIVE BLAST AND SHOCK TUBE EXPERIMENTS

In this study, detonation of TNT was simulated using an FE code and the resulting mechanical behavior of air, in which the explosion took place, was studied as a function of distance. Incident and reflected pressure and impulse profiles were compared with published data. In addition, an FE model of a shock tube setup at Temple University was developed using equations of state for Helium and air as the driver and driven fluids. The characteristics of the shock wave developed from explosive blast and shock tube were compared. It was shown that merely the two variables commonly used in the literature to compare the results from a shock tube to that of blast, i.e., peak incident pressure and positive duration, could not thoroughly include all the characteristics of the shock wave. Other parameters such as reflected pressure and impulse, which includes the velocity of the particles in addition to the pressure, are also needed to describe the shock wave.