A holographic interferometric study of shock wave focusing in a circular reflector

Abstract

A holographic interferometric study was made of the focusing of reflected shock waves from a circular reflector. A diaphragmless shock tube was used for incident shock Mach numbers ranging from 1.03 to 1.74. Hence, the process of reflected shock wave focusing was quantitatively observed. It is found that a converging shock wave along the curved wall undergoes an unsteady evolution of mach reflection and its focusing is, therefore, subject to the evolution of the process of shock wave reflections. The collision of triple points terminates the focusing process at the geometrical focus. In order to interprete quantitatively these interferograms, a numerical simulation using an Eulerian solver combined with adaptive unstructured grids was carried out. It is found numerically that the highest density appears immediately after the triple point collision. This implies that the final stage of focusing is mainly determined by the interaction between shock waves and vortices. The interaction of finite strength shock waves, hence, prevents a curved shock wave from creating the infinite increase of density or pressure at a focal point which is otherwise predicted by the linear acoustic theory.