Influence of shock attenuation on tailored operation in free piston shock tunnels

The free piston shock tunnel is a type of shock tunnel with high performance. For this type of tunnel, the influence mechanism of shock wave attenuation on tailored operation is explored by numerical simulation and theoretical analysis. By introducing the normalized velocity, the simple constraint equation for shock wave under the tailored operation is deduced. Moreover, the real gas effect is also taken into account in this equation. Based on the equation, the tailored operation of shock tunnels can be predicted with very few calculations. The present study shows that the change rate of the thermodynamic state of the gas behind the shock wave is inconsistent with the attenuation rate of the shock wave, which is the fundamental reason why the wind tunnel achieves tailored operation at a lower Mach number of shock waves. This lower Mach number of shock waves differs from the corresponding ideal value by a factor, which is about the square root of shock attenuation rate.