Shock waves play integral roles in many industrial, medical and scientific environments, consequently it is important to observe the behavior of these waves and how they interact with their surroundings; see the review paper by Takayama and Saito. Traditionally, shock tube is a standard facility to investigate the physics of shock waves and is generally composed of high-pressure driver and low-pressure driven test sections. The classical design is to use a thin diaphragm to separate these two sections and a sudden rupture of the diaphragm leads to the generation of a shock wave traveling into the low-pressure section. Alternatively, diaphragmless shock tubes have been developed by many research groups to provide a quick and effective means of producing shock waves, e.g., The major advantages compared to conventional diaphragms include, minimal downtime between repeated experiments, opening times comparable to those of conventional diaphragms and infinitely adjustable opening pressure without the use of various diaphragm thicknesses and hence, eliminates fragments that are carried downstream of the shock tube once the conventional diaphragm is ruptured. However, one of the primary challenges with the diaphragmless approach is to achieve a sufficiently rapid or optimal valve opening time to generate a well-formed shock wave in a reasonable tube length.
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