Studies with an Aerodynamically Instrumented Shock Tube

A shock tube has been set up at Cornell University to begin the study of two-dimensional wave propagation. Pressure waves initiated by the shock itself were used to trigger the spark source for the schlieren flow-observation system, to time the instant of exposure and to measure the strength (speed) of the shock waves. These techniques were employed to study the propagation of a wave in a converging channel. Fair agreement between the one-dimensional method of characteristics and these experiments was obtained.