Pseudo-schlieren CT measurement of three-dimensional flow phenomena on shock waves and vortices discharged from open ends

1A pseudo-schlieren technique is applied to the interferometric computed tomography (CT) measurement of three-dimensional (3-D) shock waves discharged from a square open end and a pair of circular open ends in a shock tube experiment. The experiment is performed for incident shock Mach numbers of 2.0 and 2.2 in nitrogen gas under supersonic post shock flow conditions at the open end. The 3-D density-gradient distributions are evaluated from the CT data of the 3-D density distributions, and are depicted in gray-scale CT images of the gradient magnitude and in pseudo-color CT images of the gradient component. The resultant pseudo-schlieren CT images clearly illustrate the 3-D flow features of shock waves, contact surfaces, and the other sharp density fronts. Their image characteristics and meaning in gas dynamics are discussed in comparison with the pseudo-color images of the density. We demonstrate that the pseudo-schlieren CT technique is a useful tool for studying 3-D problems in shock dynamics. Communicated by K. Takayama PACS 47.32.cd; 47.40.Nm; 47.80.jk