CFD modelling of flow characteristics in micro shock tubes

The use of micro shock tubes has become common in many instruments requiring a high velocity and temperature flow field, for example in micro-propulsion systems and drug delivery devices for medical systems. A shock tube has closed ends, and the flow is generated by the rupture of a diaphragm separating a driver gas at high pressure from a driven gas at relatively low pressure. The rupture results in the movement of a shock wave and contact discontinuity into the low-pressure gas, and an expansion wave into the high pressure gas. The characteristics of the resulting unsteady flow for micro shock tubes are not well known as the physics of such tubes includes additional phenomena such as rarefaction and complex viscous effects at low Reynolds numbers. In the present study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations are made for unsteady compressible flow within a micro shock tube using the van-Leer MUSCL scheme and the two-layer k-ε turbulence model. Novel results have been obtained and discussed of the effects of using different diaphragm pressure ratios, shock tube diameters and wall boundary conditions, namely no slip and slip walls.