Mach Number of A Shock Wave: Effect of Vacuum Pressure and Diaphragm Thickness

Shock waves possess characteristics of fleeting, rapid and sharp increase in velocity, temperature and pressure along with high dissipation of energy. These qualities of shock waves find their applications in a number of fields ranging from metal industries to medical sciences. With the availability of limited capacity of shock tubes, their efficiency can be increased by increasing the Mach number of shock waves, hence utility. In present study, an experiment to analyze the effect of increasing vacuum pressure as well as thickness of diaphragm on Mach number was conducted. Keeping diaphragm thickness constant at three different values, with increasing vacuum pressure from 0 to 600 mmHg, the percentage increase in Mach number was found to be 43.80%, 43.36% and 55.10%. It also depicted that Mach number increased as thickness of diaphragm was increased, with same vacuum pressure. The experimental results concluded that in the range of vacuum pressure and diaphragm thickness used, the percentage increase in Mach number was more with increasing vacuum pressure than diaphragm thickness. Computational fluid dynamic analysis of the same was done to determine the shock flow numerically and visually