COMBUSTION IN SHOCK TUBE USING ALUMINIUM

DIAPHRAGM

GUIDE TEAM MEMBERS

• Mr.G.DINESH KUMAR • YUVARAJ N (15101064)

Asst. professor • MOHAMMED VASEEM G
school of aeronautical (15101086)
sciences • HEMANTH KUMAR S
(15101092)
• SYED ABUBUCKAR S
(15101236)
 AIM

• The purpose of combustion driven shock tube is to generate a shock wave using
combustion as medium.

• The driver and driven section of shock tube is fabricated with mild steel. The
required thickness of the tube is calculated using hoop’s stress. For combustion the
fuel used is butane gas.

• Two Spark plugs are placed in the driver section. Settling chamber is kept at the
required pressure to fill the required amount of air in the driver section using a non
return valve.

• The ignition coil is used to produce spark using battery as input.

• Air fuel mixture of 3: 1 is introduced in the driver section followed by the
sequential spark ignition.

• The initial pressure was 4 bar including air and fuel in driver section. The
aluminum diaphragm of thickness 1mm is used for the experiment. The
diaphragm busted with burst pressure ratio of 12 bar and Mach no of 2.

• The shock velocity is calculated by the time response given by the two
thermocouple using NI temperature Data Acquisition.
 APPLICATIONS
• The fluid flow in the driven gas can be used much as a wind tunnel, allowing higher
temperature and pressure replicating conditions in turbine sections of jet engine.
However, test times are limited to a few milliseconds either by the arrival of contact
surface or the reflected shockwave.
• Results from the shock tube experiments can be use to develop and validate
numerical models of the response of a material or object to a blast wave.
• Shock tube have been developed in a wide range of sizes. The size and method of
producing the shockwave to determine the peak and the duration of pressure wave it
produces.
• Shock tube is used in chemical studies in high temperature gas reaction and to
compute dissociation energies of various gases.
• In physics it is used in heat transfer studies and in plasma and ionization research. It
is used to experimentally determine the material and design suitable for attenuating
blast.
 LITERATURE REVIEW
AUTHOR JOURNAL KEY FINDINGS
DETAILS

Janardhanraj S, “Combustion driven In this shock tube hydrogen and oxygen is

Jagadeesh G small scale shock used as a fuel in the molar ratio 2:1. The flow
tube” in the eighth coming out at the open end of the shock tube
international high is visualised using a high speed schlieren
energy materials screen. The corresponding Mach no are 2.93
conference in the year and 4.19 for fill pressures of 1.4 bar and 1.7
2011. bar respectively.

Brock bobbitt, “Combustion driven To initiate combustion the tube is lined with
Scrmet sahaner, shock tube” in the two rows of six automotive type spark plugs.
Bryan schmidt year 2012. Stainless steel diaphragm are used instead
because it has lower electrical conductivity
than aluminium.
Gautham K nambiar, “Design and fabrication To pressurize the gas in the driven
Sriram M, Dharanidhar of hand operated mini section, a piston driven mechanism
M, Prashant G nair, shock tube” in the year is used. The piston is fixed to the
Nagaraja S R. 2017. bearing and spindle rod is fixed to
the bearing to prevent the piston
from rotating. The primary and
reflected shock wave pressure are
measured using piezo resistive
sensor. Mach number upto 1.8 is
obtained.

Soumya ranjan nandha, “Shock tube as an It focuses on the application of an

Sumith agarwal, impulsive application impulse facility in diverse area of
Vinayak kulkarni, device” in the year high speed aerodynamics and
Niranjan sahoo. 2017. structural mechanics. The heat
transfer measurements are taken
using co axial thermocouple. The
bursting pressure is noticed to be
20 bar.
 METHODOLOGY
• The experimental setup mainly consists of a driver section and a driven section
which are separated by a diaphragm.

• The driver section is part of a shock tube were the combustion takes place.

• The driver section is a high pressure region where the pressure buildup occurs.

• There are various methods to pressurize the driver section such as by using an air
compressor, piston mechanism and combustion of gases. In our project we use
combustion technique for bursting the diaphragm. Combustion is achieved by using
butane gas fuel.

• Diaphragm is selected according to various requirements such as single or double

diaphragm can be used in a shock tube.

• The driven section is mounted with fittings for thermocouple placed at a distance
of 500mm apart. Other end of the driven section is open to room temperature.
 Construction details
Driver section specification:

Length 0.6m
Inner Diameter 0.074m
Outer Diameter 0.102m
Thickness 0.0014m
Material Mild Steel
Maximum pressure 450bar
Driven section specification

Length 1.4m
Inner Diameter 0.074m
Outer Diameter 0.102m
Thickness 0.0014m
Material Mild Steel
Maximum Pressure 450bar
 System setup of combustion driven shock tube

•Combustion driven setup consist of compressor where the air is compressed and
stored in the settling chamber.
•The calculated amount of air from settling chamber is sent into the driver section
through a non return valve.
•Another line is provided for fuel supply with a regulator in the fuel can in to the
driver section. Thus the whole setup is provided with non return valve where it is
required.
Modification of driver section
• The driver section of the shock tube is been modified for proceeding the project
with combustion process.

• The fuel inlet hole and the air inlet hole are drilled at driver section and two holes
are provided for the spark plugs which are used for the ignition process

• Copper pipe is inserted in one of the hole in L shape for supplying gas.
 Ignition system setup

• Ignition system is a set of devices used to ignite the air-fuel mixture in the
combustion chamber(driver section). The ignition system consist of battery, ignition
coil and spark plug.

• The ignition coil is the device which is used to boot the energy given by the battery
to the spark plug so that it could produce high intensity spark. The calling bell
button is used in the place of pickup coil so that it could produce spark.
 MATERIALS SELECTED
BUTANE GAS
• Butane gas is selected for
combustion because the butane gas
can is easily portable and easily
available in market.
Spark plug
•A spark plug is a device for delivering
electric current from an ignition system to
driver section.
•NGK spark plug is selected as it can
produce intense spark and has high
melting point
IGNITION COIL
• An ignition coil is an induction coil in an automobile’s ignition system that
transforms the battery’s low voltage to the thousands of volts needed to create
electric spark in the spark plugs to ignite the fuel.

• Here we use two separate ignition coil for each spark plug by connecting two
separate batteries.
DIAPHRAGM
• The Diaphragm is of Aluminum. A small groove is made on the diaphragm for
getting a proper burst of diaphragm.

• The diaphragm is positioned in between the driver and the driven section.
Diaphragms of 1mm thickness are used during the test.

Diaphragm Thickness 1mm

Diaphragm Diameter 0.084m
TESTING
DURING BURST

AFTER BURST
TEST PROCEDURE

• The 1mm diaphragm is placed between the driver and driven section.

• Two k type thermocouples are connected in driven section at a distance of 500mm

apart.

• These thermocouples are connected to a temperature DAQ. DAQ is connected to

the computer using DAQ USB carrier. Coupling section is properly sealed with a
rubber O ring and silica gel.

• The fuel and the compressed air is supplied into the driver section in the ratio 0.8:3
and the combustion is initiated by spark plug using a switch.

• The reading from the thermocouple is taken using lab view software .
OBSERVATION
•Due to fuel supply the combustion process has rapidly increased the pressure in
the driver section rapidly which leads to the burst of the aluminium diaphragm of
1mm.
•The diaphragm had busted uniformly in one direction. Time response table is
obtained from the DAQ system from which the speed of the shock is calculated as
0.79 milliseconds

Busted diaphragm(test 3)
GRAPH OBTAINED
TEST 3

• From the graph,

• we can obtain the velocity of the shock wave by using the relation

= 625.3m/s

Mach =1.83.
For unsteady case:

For steady case:

For calculating the shock wave properties upstream and downstream shock wave is
taken as a reference frame a velocity of w is imposed in the opposite direction so U1
becomes w. UP is the velocity of the mass flux in front of the shock wave. After
superimposition the resultant velocity is in the direction U2.
T1= TO1 = 309k
P1= PO1 = 1.013 bar
U1=0(upstream of the shock)
P11 = PO11 = 1.013 bar
T1 =To11 = 309 k
w = 625.3m/s
a11 =(γ = 1.3)
a11= 339.54 m/s
From the gas tables Normal shocks (γ =1.3)
For Mach 1.83 the data is given as,
M21=0.5933
P21/p11 = 3.7385
T21/T11=1.4375
Po21/po11 = 0.775

P21 =3.787 bar

T21 =444.1k
a21= 383.06 m/s
Up= a21x M21 = 241.53m/s
=444.1-241.5=202.6 m/s
Now,
p21= p2
T21=T2
P2 = 3.78 bar
T2 = 444.1 k
Test 4
Observation:
•In this test it is observed that the pressure developed is more beacause of
increased fuel air ratio which is 1:3.
• The burst pressure is calculated as 12 bar where the mach no of the shock
wave is also increased
•The shock travelling time is noted as 0.73 milli seconds

Busted diaphragm
TEST 4

• From the graph,

• we can obtain the velocity of the shock wave by using the relation

= 684.93 m/s
Mach = 2
T1= TO1 = 309k
P1= PO1 = 1.013 bar
U1=0(upstream of the shock)
P11 = PO11 = 1.013 bar
T1 =To11 = 309 k
w = 684.9m/s
a11 =(γ = 1.3)
a11= 339.5 m/s
From the gas tables Normal shocks (γ =1.3)
For Mach 2 the data is given as,
M21=0.562
P21/p11 =4.3913
T21/T11=1.5274
Po21/po11 =0.930
Po21/p11=3.413
P21 =4.44 bar
T21 = 471.96k
a21= 419.62 m/s
Up= a21x M21 = 235.83 m/s
=684.9-235.83=449.07
Now,
p21= p2
T21=T2
P2 = 4.44 bar
T2 = 471.9 k
 VALIDATION
Before results

Burst Pressure Temperatur Pressure Temperatur

Diaphragm Speed of
pressure ahead of e ahead of behind e behind
Thickness shock wave
ration shock wave shock wave shock wave shock wave

1mm 6bar Mach 1.2 1.013 bar 309k 1.53 bar 348.5k

Combustion results

Pressure Temperatu Pressure Temperatu

Diaphrag Speed of
Burst ahead of re ahead of behind re behind
m shock
pressure shock shock shock shock
Thickness wave
wave wave wave wave

1mm 9 bar Mach 1.83 1.013 bar 309 K 3.78 bar 444.1 K

1mm 12 bar Mach 2 1.013 bar 309 K 4.4 bar 471.9 K

•From the above results it is inferred that already existing pressure driven shock
tube has produced a shock wave of mach no 1.2 and the burst pressure was 6 bar.

•Whereas combustion driven shock tube has nearly achieved two times greater
compared to pressure driven shock tube.

• The mach no 2 is obtained for burst pressure of 12 bar.

•As a result of combustion higher velocities of shock wave is obtained compared

to pressure driven shock tube
 RESULTS
Tempera Tempera
Diaphra Pressure Pressure
Speed of ture ture
gm Burst ahead of behind
shock ahead of behind
Thicknes pressure shock shock
wave shock shock
s wave wave
wave wave
Mach
1mm 9 bar 1.013 bar 309 K 3.78 bar 444.1 K
1.83
1mm 12 bar Mach 2 1.013 bar 309 K 4.4 bar 471.9 K

The speed of the shock wave is calculated for various burst pressure and for
different air fuel ratio for the thickness of 1mm diaphragm. The mach no
obtained is 1.83 and 2 for burst pressure of 9 and 12 bar respectively. Using super
imposition principle the temperature and pressure behind and ahead of shock is
calculated.
 CONCLUSION
• The speed of the shock wave due to combustion in the driver section is obtained for
diaphragm thickness of 1 mm.
• The air is compressed and stored in the settling chamber. Calculated air fuel ratio is
sent into the driver section using a non return valve. Combustion is initiated by
using the spark plug.
• Burst pressure is obtained for air fuel ratio for diaphragm thickness of 1 mm.
• The mach is calculated using a time response obtained from temperature data
acquisition.
• The time travelled by the shock wave is calculated as 0.73 milliseconds.
• From the mach of the shock wave and by using the superimposition principle the
temperature and pressure ahead and behind of the shock wave
 FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS

•The shock tube can be further optimized to sustain the velocity of a shock
for a few seconds where it can be used to simulate a flow over the model.
A C-D Nozzle is attached at the end of the driver section to increase the
velocity of a shock.
•The schlieren system can be used to capture the high speed flow of the
shock over the model.
The pneumatic system can be used for the coupling of the driver of the
driven section. This technique may help to reduced the time taken for the
change of diaphragm and also reduces the human efforts.
•Various diaphragm thickness can be used to obtain the high strength of the
shock wave.
•Different fuels can be used in the driver section for achieving different
burst pressure.
THANK YOU