Impulse Loading of Plates using a Diverging Shock Tube

Abstract

Impulsive blast loading studies typically require facilities with sub-millisecond decay time simulation capability. Using a conventional shock tube for such studies, however, is not viable due to a finite shock formation distance that limits the size of the shortest, functional driven tube. To overcome this, a diverging (conical) shock tube has been proposed in this work, motivations for which are grounded in simple shock tube theory. Using such a shock tube, for the first time, blast pulses having decay times of around 0.7 ms have been achieved repeatably (± 5.5%). Subsequently, blast loading experiments (equated to 30 − 40 g TNT surface explosion at 0.5 m stand-off distance) carried out on metal plates showed that this device can replicate the deflection patterns of an impulsive blast loading which could not be obtained so far using conventional shock tubes.