Passive Shock Wave Attenuation by Liquid Sheets

The use of liquid sheets to understand passive shock wave attenuation was investigated experimentally by impacting planar liquid sheets of varying thicknesses with planar shock waves. To create a sheet of liquid, a liquid container was designed to hold liquid in the desired shape with 5, 10, and 20 mm thickness in the test section of a shock tube. Planar shock waves with shock Mach numbers ranging from $M_{s} =$ 1.1 to 1.5 were generated. In addition to varying the shock Mach number, different liquid media, water and a cornstarch suspension, were used. Pressure traces show that stronger incident shock waves result in higher reflected and transmitted pressures and that a thicker sheet reduces transmitted pressure but increases reflected pressure. Furthermore, for water versus cornstarch suspensions, a different thickness threshold was found to determine whether the transmitted wave is a shock wave or a pressure wave. Also, the breakup of the liquid sheets was fundamentally different between the two liquids.