Shock tube

About: Shock tube is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 6963 publications have been published within this topic receiving 99372 citations.

Experimental and modeling study on the pyrolysis and oxidation of iso-octane

Abstract: High pressure iso-octane shock tube experiments were conducted to assist in the development of a Jet A surrogate kinetic model. Jet A is a kerosene based jet fuel composed of hundreds of hydrocarbons consisting of paraffins, olefins, aromatics and naphthenes. In the formulation of the surrogate mixture, iso-octane represents the branched paraffin class of hydrocarbons present in aviation fuels like Jet A. The experimental work on iso-octane was performed in a heated high pressure single pulse shock tube. The mole fractions of the stable species were determined using gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy. Experimental data on iso-octane oxidation and pyrolysis were obtained for temperatures from 835 to 1757 K, pressures from 21 to 65 atm, reactions times from 1.11 to 3.66 ms, and equivalence ratios from 0.52 to 1.68, and ∞. Iso-octane oxidation showed that the fuel decays through thermally driven oxygen free decomposition at conditions studied. This observation prompted an experimental and modeling study of iso-octane pyrolysis using an iso-octane sub-model taken from a recently published n-decane/iso-octane/toluene surrogate model. The revised iso-octane sub-model showed improvements in predicting intermediate species profiles from pyrolytic experiments and oxidation experiments. The modifications to the iso-octane sub-model also contributed to better agreement in predicting the formation of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide when compared to the recently published 1st Generation Surrogate model and a recently published iso-octane oxidation model. Model improvements were also seen in predicting species profiles from flow reactor oxidation experiments and ignition delay times at temperatures above 1000 K at both 10 and 50 atm.

A switch to reduce resistivity in smoothed particle magnetohydrodynamics

Abstract: Artificial resistivity is included in Smoothed Particle Magnetohydrodynamics simulations to capture shocks and discontinuities in the magnetic field. Here we present a new method for adapting the strength of the applied resistivity so that shocks are captured but the dissipation of the magnetic field away from shocks is minimised. Our scheme utilises the gradient of the magnetic field as a shock indicator, setting {\alpha}_B = h|gradB|/|B|, such that resistivity is switched on only where strong discontinuities are present. The advantage to this approach is that the resistivity parameter does not depend on the absolute field strength. The new switch is benchmarked on a series of shock tube tests demonstrating its ability to capture shocks correctly. It is compared against a previous switch proposed by Price & Monaghan (2005), showing that it leads to lower dissipation of the field, and in particular, that it succeeds at capturing shocks in the regime where the Alfv\'en speed is much less than the sound speed (i.e., when the magnetic field is very weak). It is also simpler. We also demonstrate that our recent constrained divergence cleaning algorithm has no difficulty with shock tube tests, in contrast to other implementations.

Computational parametric study of a Richtmyer-Meshkov instability for an inclined interface

Abstract: A computational study of the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability for an inclined interface is presented. The study covers experiments to be performed in the Texas A&M University inclined shock tube facility. Incident shock wave Mach numbers from 1.2 to 2.5, inclination angles from 30° to 60°, and gas pair Atwood numbers of ∼0.67 and ∼0.95 are used in this parametric study containing 15 unique combinations of these parameters. Qualitative results are examined through a time series of density plots for multiple combinations of these parameters, and the qualitative effects of each of the parameters are discussed. Pressure, density, and vorticity fields are presented in animations available online to supplement the discussion of the qualitative results. These density plots show the evolution of two main regions in the flow field: a mixing region containing driver and test gas that is dominated by large vortical structures, and a more homogeneous region of unmixed fluid which can separate away from the mixing region in some cases. The interface mixing width is determined for various combinations of the parameters listed at the beginning of the Abstract. A scaling method for the mixing width is proposed using the interface geometry and wave velocities calculated using one-dimensional gas dynamic equations. This model uses the transmitted wave velocity for the characteristic velocity and an initial offset time based on the travel time of strong reflected waves. It is compared to an adapted Richtmyer impulsive model scaling and shown to scale the initial mixing width growth rate more effectively for fixed Atwood number.

The late-time development of the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability

Abstract: Measurements have been made of the growth by the Richtmyer–Meshkov instability of nominally single-scale perturbations on an air/sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) interface in a large shock tube. An approximately sinusoidal shape is given to the interface by a wire mesh which supports a polymeric membrane separating the air from the SF6. A single shock wave incident on the interface induces motion by the baroclinic mechanism of vorticity generation. The visual thickness delta of the interface is measured from schlieren photographs obtained singly in each run and in high-speed motion pictures. Data are presented for delta at times considerably larger than previously reported, and they are tested for self-similarity including independence of initial conditions. Four different initial amplitude/wavelength combinations at one incident shock strength are used to determine the scaling of the data. It is found that the growth rate decreases rapidly with time, ddelta/dt[proportional]t–p (i.e., delta[proportional]t1–p), where 0.67<~p<~0.74 and that a small dependence on the initial wavelength lambda0 persists to large time. The larger value of the power law exponent agrees with the result of the late-time-decay similarity law of Huang and Leonard [Phys. Fluids 6, 3765–3775 (1994)]. The influence of the wire mesh and membrane on the mixing process is assessed.

Numerical study on blast flowfields induced by supersonic projectiles discharged from shock tubes

Abstract: In this paper we report on a numerical study of the blast flowfield generated by a supersonic projectile released from the open-end of a shock tube into ambient air. The Euler equations, assuming axisymmetric flows, were solved using a dispersion-controlled scheme implemented with moving boundary conditions. Two initial test cases were calculated. One of them is for validation of the numerical method and the other for verification of the moving boundary conditions. After good agreement was achieved, four further cases were calculated for examining effects of various projectile speeds and different release times of the projectile after the precursor shock wave was discharged. The present numerical study confirms that complicated transient phenomena exist in the initial stages shortly after projectile release, and that the blast flowfield is much more complex than that which can be inferred from muzzle blast studies where combustion products obscure the flow.