Abstract:

The present work is on designing, fabricating, and experimenting on shock tubes. Shock tube and processing system is a low-cost open-source alternative that has been developed and presented in this report. The use of available open-source hardware and software platforms like Arduino and pressure transducers was done. A shock tube is a simple laboratory apparatus that can generate the various flow speeds at different flow regions and produce different types of Mach numbers. The Experimentation has been done with different thicknesses of aluminium diaphragms, producing the shockwaves with different Mach numbers. The shock tube performance is based on the wave's pressure ratio and speed in the driven section. Experiments were conducted in a circular cross-section shock tube with two sections: the driver section and another one is the driven section. Shock tube dimensions of 2.5m long with an inner diameter of 50mm and 2mm made of mild steel are used as experimental apparatus. The shockwave is generated by bursting thin diaphragms instantaneously with appropriate pressure ratios across the driver and driven section of the shock tube. The primary and reflected shock is measured by high-frequency pressure transducers located towards the driven section's end.

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