ABSTRACT
A shock tube is a relatively simple device for producing high-speed gas flows in the laboratory. The essential features of a shock tube with windows for flow visualization. Shock tubes vary in size from those a few meters long and centimeters in diameter, to large blast simulators, which may be hundreds of meters long and tens of meters in diameter. For high-pressure shocks, circular windows are preferred to avoid the stresses that build at the corners of a rectangular window. It should always be assumed that a shock tube window may fail, and suitable precautions must be taken to protect operators from both flying glass and the intensity of sound released from a failed window, which may damage eardrums. By changing the positions of the smoke-injection and window sections of the shock tube, the smoke tracers could be initiated at any position in the expansion chamber of the tube, and their movement could be recorded at any other position.
