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A $55 Shock Tube for Simulated Blast Waves

Shock tubes are commonly employed to test candidate armor materials, validate numerical models, and conduct simulated blast experiments in animal models. As DoD interests desire to field wearable sensors as blast dosimeters, shock tubes may also serve for calibration and testing of these devices. The high blast pressures needed for experimental testing of candidate armors are unnecessary to test these sensors. An inexpensive, efficient, and easily available way of testing these pressure sensors is desirable. It is known that releasing compressed gas suddenly can create a repeatable shock front, and the pressures can be finely tuned by changing the pressure to which the gas is compressed. A Crosman 0.177 caliber air pistol was used (without loading any pellets) to compress and release air in one end of a 24 inch long 3/4 inch diameter standard pipe nipple to simulate a blast wave at the other end of the tube. A variable number of pumps were used to vary the peak blast pressure. As expected, the trials where 10 pumps were used to compress the air resulted in the largest average peak pressure of 101.99 kPa (+/- 2.63 kPa). The design with 7 pumps had the second biggest peak pressure, with an average peak pressure of 89.11 kPa (+/-1.77 kPa). The design with 5 pumps had the third largest peak pressure, with an average peak pressure of 78.80 kPa (+/-1.74 kPa). 3 pumps produced an average peak pressure of 61.37 kPa (+/-2.20 kPa). 2 pumps produced an average peak pressure of 48.11 kPa (+/-1.57 kPa). The design with just 1 pump had the smallest peak pressure and produced an average peak pressure of 30.13 kPa (+/-0.79 kPa). This inexpensive shock tube design had a shot-to-shot cycle time of between 30 and 45 seconds.