Flow instability in shock tube due to shock wave-boundary layer-contact surface interactions, a numerical study

• Main Authors: Amir A.-F., Yusoff M.Z., Shuaib N.H., Yusaf T.
• Other Authors: 15750212500
• Format: Article
• Published: EuroJournals, Inc. 2023
• Subjects: Boundary layer; CFD; Contact surface; Shock tube; Shock wave
• Institution: Universiti Tenaga Nasional

This paper describes numerical simulation of transient flow conditions in shock tube. A two dimensional time accurate Navier-Stokes CFD solver for shock tube applications is developed to perform the numerical investigations. The solver was developed based on the dimensions of a newly built short-duration high speed flow test facility at Universiti Tenaga Nasional "UNITEN" in Malaysia. The facility has been designed, built, and commissioned in such a way so that it can be used as a free piston compressor, shock tube, shock tunnel and gun tunnel interchangeably. Different values of diaphragm pressure ratios P4/P1 are applicable in order to get wide range of Mach number. In this paper, in order to obtain better understanding of the processes involved, CFD simulations were performed for selected cases and the results are analyzed in details. The shock wave motion was traced and in order to investigate the flow stability, details two dimensional effects were investigated. It was observed that the flow becomes unstable due to shock wave-boundary layer-contact surface interactions after shock reflected off the tube end. � EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2009.