33 years of research by means of shock tubes at the French-German Research Institute at Saint-Louis

For the past 33 years, shock tubes have been employed at the French-German Research Institute as a powerful multipurpose tool for a variety of investigations. The main field of applications has remained gasdynamics. The facilities employed in these investigations are discussed, taking into account a combination of the shock tube with schlieren optics and the Cranz-Schardin camera, the use of corona probes as shock detectors, an ion tracer velocimeter, high-pressure shock tubes, the shock tube laboratory, and a sonic boom generator. A description is given of developments occurring in connection with the visualization of problems of nonstationary gasdynamics, and the investigations conducted with high pressure shock tubes up to 1973 are discussed. Attention is given to the employment of special piezoelectric transducers for measuring static and stagnation pressures, platinum surface thermometers, and hypersonic research. Studies performed since 1973 were largely related to the problem of jet noise.