Thirty-three years of research with shock tubes in the Franco-German Research Institute, Saint Louis (France)

Research in gas dynamics using shock tubes is reviewed. Reflection and diffraction of shock waves on a great variety of objects, their passage though slots, nozzles and several channels, the formation of vortices during these phenomena, and the evaporation of droplets in the flow behind the shock were filmed. Two large high pressure shock tubes were used as subsonic, transonic, supersonic, and hypersonic wind tunnels for the production of nozzle blast waves and supersonic jets, as well as for the investigation of unsteady, head waves and boundary layers. Hot flows behind accelerated pistons, pressure waves in transonic flows, and entrainment of dust in shock waves and vortices were studied.