Generation and Propagation of Shock Waves in Submillimeter Capillaries

Shock wave propagation in a capillary is investigated experimentally. Shock waves are generated by a high-power fs laser or a high-speed magnetic valve in a capillary, respectively. In contrast to those conventional methods of macroscopic shock wave generation which involve a diaphragm, the current methods enable the investigation of shock waves in the submillimeter toward the micrometer scale. The low Reynolds number flows in the experiments enable the study of downscaling and the boundary effects as suggested by Mirels [1] and Brouillette [2]. Scaling effects make the flow in a capillary different from that in a macroscopic shock tube. The experimental results show the deviation from the classical shock theory.