A1/water shock tube experiments at AWRE, foulness since January 1972

Work on this rig up to April 1971 was reported to the last Crest meeting in January 1972. An inspection of the shock tube had revealed damaged gauge seatings and a more robust replacement tube has now been supplied, complete with high quality vacuum ball valves in place of the simple gas cocks used previously. The driving reservoir is now a sealed integral extension of the top of the shock tube with the same internal bore. This enables a direct measure of the mechanical work transferred to the water column to be made by measuring the peak pressure in the recompressed reservoir gas. The improved containment has increased the measured transient peak water pressure in the thermal interaction by 25% as compared with directly comparable figures reported in January 1972. A programme of parameter variation is now proceeding in this all metal rig, starting with the temperature of the molten aluminium. The pressurised viewing cell proposed in 1972 has been designed and will be constructed and brought into use by Spring 1974