Shock wave tracking of an air blast and flyer plate using background-oriented schlieren

In this work the position of a flyer plate and air blast wave are tracked using background-

oriented schlieren (BOS). When an explosively driven flyer plate is launched at a target, the air blast from

the explosion initially passes the flyer until the flyer overcomes the air blast. To determine at what point

the flyer plate separates from the leading shock, a simple yet effective analysis was performed using

BOS. BOS has been shown to be an important tool for large-scale outdoor applications when quantitative

analysis is required. BOS only requires a camera and an adequately ununiform background to visualize

and obtain shock data, making it a desirable tool where traditional schlieren and shadowgraph

techniques are not feasible. BOS image subtraction techniques used in combination with high-speed

images allowed for the position and velocity of the multiple shockwaves to be measured.