The effects that changes in the diaphragm aperture have on the resulting shock tube flow

In a conventional shock tube, the driver and the driven sections have similar (if not identical) cross-sectional area and the diaphragm opened area, upon rupturing, is practically equal to the tube cross-sectional area. Such geometry results in generating a well-formed shock wave in the tube's driven section. The present experimental work checks the effects that changes in the diaphragm ruptured area have on the generated shock and rarefaction waves. Experiments were conducted in an 80 mm by 80 mm cross section shock tube generating incident shock waves having Mach numbers within the range from 1.06 to 1.25. In each run, pressure histories were recorded along the driven and the driver sections of the shock tube. The recorded pressures reveal that progressive reduction in the diaphragm open space resulted in a weaker shock and both longer time and distance until the compression waves generated close to the diaphragm coalesces into a shock wave. In addition, reducing the open space of the diaphragm resulted in a significant slow down in the high pressure reduction prevailing in the driver section.