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The propagation of a planar shock wave through a split channel is both experimentally and numerically studied. Experiments were conducted in a square cross-sectional shock tube having a main channel which splits into two symmetric secondary channels, for three different shock wave Mach numbers ranging from about 1.1 to 1.7. High-speed schlieren visualizations were used along with pressure measurements to analyze the main physical mechanisms that govern shock wave diffraction. It is shown that the flow behind the transmitted shock wave through the bifurcation resulted in a highly two-dimensional unsteady and non-uniform flow accompanied with significant pressure loss. In parallel, numerical simulations based on the solution of the Euler equations with a second-order Godunov scheme confirmed the experimental results with good agreement. Finally, a parametric study was carried out using numerical analysis where the angular displacement of the two channels that define the bifurcation was changed from 90∘, 45∘, 20∘, and 0∘. We found that the angular displacement does not significantly affect the overpressure experience in either of the two channels and that the area of the expansion region is the important variable affecting overpressure, the effect being, in the present case, a decrease of almost one half. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerical modeling of the interaction between a cloud of water droplets and a planar shock wave is compared with experimental data. The mathematical model relies on an Eulerian description of the dispersed phase with the assumption of dilute flows. It is shown that the secondary atomization of the droplets strongly influences the structure of both the shock wave and the induced flow. After shock loading, the individual liquid components generate daughter droplets, and the overall interphase surface per unit volume undergoes strong variations which modify the pressure relaxation process towards a dynamic and thermal equilibrium state. The experimental data enable one to determine the best analytical formulation of the droplet number production rate. Models of droplet number production rate are compared in order to highlight this feature. The model based on the assumption of linear variation of droplet diameter with time gives the best agreement between the numerical results and the experimental data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mitigation of a planar shock wave caused by a cloud of calibrated water droplets was studied both experimentally and numerically. Experiments were carried out, with different shock wave Mach numbers ranging from 1.1 to 1.8, in a vertical shock tube coupled with a droplet generator which produced a well-characterized cloud of droplets of 120, 250 and 500 μm in diameter. By exploiting such an experimental set-up, we successfully measured the attenuation of a normal shock wave when passing through the water droplet cloud. This series of experiments allowed to identify the main parameters of this investigation and a clear dependence between the attenuation of the shock wave and terms governing the regimes of droplet breakup has been found. On the other hand, to support this experimental approach, 1D unsteady calculations were performed in similar configurations. Although the mathematical model based on an Eulerian/Eulerian approach was actually incomplete, the first comparisons between the experiments and the simulations were rather interesting and pointed out the need to improve the physical model, by taking into account the fragmentation and the vaporization of the droplets submitted to the shock wave as well as the size distribution of the water spray. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the numerical solution and validation of a reactive flow model dedicated to the study of spherical explosions with an aluminized energetic material. Situations related to air blast as well as underwater explosions are examined. Such situations involve multiscale phenomena associated with the detonation reaction zone, the aluminium reaction zone, the shock propagation distance and the bubble oscillation period. A detonation tracking method is developed in order to avoid the detonation structure computation. An ALE formulation is combined to the detonation tracking method in order to solve the material interface between detonation products and the environment as well as shock propagation. The model and the algorithm are then validated over a wide range of spherical explosions involving several types of explosives, both in air and liquid water environment. Large-scale experiments have been done in order to determine the blast wave effects with explosive compositions of variable aluminium content. In all situations the agreement between computed and experimental results is very good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]