Experimental and numerical studies of focusing process of weak shock waves

This paper describes numerical and experimental studies of a weak shock wave reflected from various shapes of the parabolic reflector. Experiments have been carried out using a conventional shock tube with air as test gas at an incident shock Mach number of 1.1. In the experiments, the process of the shock focusing have been visualized by a Schlieren technique. Numerical studies have been conducted using a two-dimensional inviscid flow model. Thus obtained numerical results have been compared with the experimental ones for various reflector shapes and satisfactory agreement have been obtained.