Recent advances in detonation techniques for high-enthalpy facilities

Detonations can be used to generate a high-pressure gas of high acoustic sp eed to drive a shock tube. Recently, detonation driven facilities have been implemented for meaningful hypervelocity testing. These facilities Fan be operated with the detonation wave propagating either downstream or upstream . The advantages and problems associated with these methods art discussed. In addition to a performance comparison between these two modes, comparison s with other high-performance techniques, such as free piston and gun tunne ls, are also made. At present, detonation driven facilities are generally o f lower performance than free piston tunnels, However, they appear easier t o operate and have a lower capital investment.