Shock-tube experiments in combination with high speed Schlieren shadow photography. 

The shocktube setup consists of a high-pressure reservoir connected with a cylindrical tube through a diaphragm pulse valve which allows a fast release of pressurized gas into the ambient pressure tube. The high-pressure reservoir is filled with compressed air at a given overpressure with respect to ambient pressure (up to 8 bar). The pipe was either empty (i.e. with air at ambient conditions) or filled with a given amount of fluids (water or viscous fluid) or small particles. We adopted pipes with different inner diameters (3 and 4 cm) and different lengths (30 and 80 cm). Images were collected at a frame rate of 30000 fps.

When the valve is open, a jet flow is produced, with shock and acoustic waves propagating in the atmosphere, which become visible due to the high speed Schlieren shadow photography.