6.4. SHOCK TUBE 129
6.4 Shock Tube
The shock tube is a study tool with very little practical purposes. It is used in many
cases to understand certain phenomena. Other situations can be examined and extended
from these phenomena. A cylinder with two chambers connected by a diaphragm. On
one side the pressure is high, while the pressure on the other side is low. When the
diaphragm is ruptured the gas from the high pressure section flows into the low pressure
section. When the pressure is high enough, a shock is created that it travels to the
low pressure chamber. This is the same case as in the suddenly opened valve case
described previously. At the back of the shock, expansion waves occur with a reduction
of pressure. The temperature is known to reach several thousands degrees in a very
brief period of time. The high pressure chamber is referred to in the literature is the
driver section and the low section is referred to as the expansion section.
Diaphragm
expansion
front
distance
t
1
t
reflective
shock
wave
Contact Surface
front
back
some where
reflective wave
shock wave
1
23
45
Fig. -6.22. The shock tube schematic with a pressure
“diagram.”
Initially, the gas from the
driver section is coalescing from
small shock waves into a large
shock wave. In this analysis, it is
assumed that this time is essen-
tially zero. Zone 1 is an undis-
turbed gas and zone 2 is an area
where the sho ck already passed.
The assumption is that the shock
is very sharp with zero width.
On the other side, the expansion
waves are moving into the high
pressure chamber i.e. the driver
section. The shock is moving at
a supersonic speed (it depends on
the definition, i.e., what reference
temperature is being used) and the medium behind the shock is also moving but at a
velocity, U
2
, which can be supersonic or subsonic in stationary coordinates. The ve-
locities in the expansion chamber vary between three zones. In zone 3 is the original
material that was in the high pressure chamber but is now the same pressure as zone
2. Zone 4 is where the gradual transition occurs between original high pressure to low
pressure. The boundaries of zone 4 are defined by initial conditions. The expansion
front is moving at the local speed of sound in the high pressure section. The expansion
back front is moving at the local speed of sound velocity but the actual gas is moving in
the opposite direction in U
2
. In fact, material in the expansion chamber and the front
are moving to the left while the actual flow of the gas is moving to the right (refer to
Figure (6.22)). In zone 5, the velocity is zero and the pressure is in its original value.
The properties in the different zones have different relationships. The relationship
between zone 1 and zone 2 is that of a moving shock into still medium (again, this is
a case of sudden opened valve). The material in zone 2 and 3 is moving at the same
velocity (speed) but the temperature and the entropy are different, while the pressure in
the two zones are the same. The pressure, the temperature and their properties in zone