STL Fast Decompression Experiment Data for "Standing Shock Prevents Propagation of Sparks in Supersonic Explosive Flows"

Background

This data is camera images and pressure gauge and RF antenna voltage traces from rapid decompression shots at the STL shock tube facility. 

This data is used in figures 1, 2, 3, and 4 and corresponds to the STL shots listed in table S1 of the paper "Standing Shock Prevents Propagation of Sparks in Supersonic Explosive Flows".

Electric sparks and explosive flows have long been associated with each other. Flowing dust particles originate charge through contact and separate based on inertia, resulting in strong electric fields supporting sparks. These sparks can cause explosions in dusty environments, especially those rich in carbon, such as coal mines and grain elevators. Recent observations of explosive events in nature and decompression experiments indicate that supersonic flows of explosions may alter the electrical discharge process. Shocks may suppress parts of the hierarchy of the discharge phenomena, such as leaders. In our decompression experiments, a shock tube ejects a flow of gas and particles into an expansion chamber. We imaged an illuminated plume from the decompression of a mixture of argon and <100 mg of diamond particles and observe sparks occurring below the sharp boundary of a condensation cloud. We also performed hydrodynamics simulations of the decompression event that provide insight into the conditions supporting the observed behavior. Simulation results agree closely with the experimentally observed Mach disk shock shape and height. This represents direct evidence that the sparks are sculpted by the outflow. The spatial and temporal scale of the sparks transmit an impression of the shock tube flow, a connection that could enable novel instrumentation to diagnose currently inaccessible supersonic granular phenomena.

Accessing Data

The prefixes of the filenames correspond to the shot dates and approximate times listed in table S1 of the paper. 

The "_SA4.zip" and "_SA3.zip" files contains tiff images of the SA4 and SA3 camera frames, respectively. The ".cih" file in each zip lists camera settings in plain text.

The "OscilloscopeData.zip" contains files with prefixes corresponding to the shot dates and times listed in table and the diagnostic name. Files ending in ".csv" contain raw data and ".pdf" contain plots of the respective data. For pressure data, 1 V = 100 psi.