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In the current work, we use the Constant Volume model and the numerical method, Regularized Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (RSPH) to study propagation and reflection of blast waves from detonations of the high explosives C-4 and TNT. The results from simulations of free-field TNT explosions are compared to previously published data, and good agreement is found. Measurements from height of burst tests performed by the Norwegian Defence Estates Agency are used to compare against numerical simulations. The results for shock time of arrival and the pressure levels are well represented by the numerical results. The results are also found to be in good agreement with results from a commercially available code. The effect of allowing different ratios of specific heat capacities in the explosive products are studied. We also evaluate the effect of changing the charge shape and height of burst on the triple point trajectory.

This paper describes application of a background oriented schlieren technique in order to obtain quantitative measurements of shock waves from explosions by processing high speed digital video recordings. The technique is illustrated by an analysis of two explosions, a high explosive test and a hydrogen gas explosion test. The visualization of the shock front is utilized to calculate the shock Mach number, leading to a predicted shock front pressure. For high explosives the method agreed quite well with a standard curve for side-on shock pressures. In the case of the gas explosion test we can also show that the shock front is non-spherical. It should be possible to develop this technique to investigate external blast waves and external explosions from vented gas explosions in more details.

Attenuation of shock waves in granular filters has been studied. Both pressurized air and solid explosives have been used for generating shock waves in a shock tube. The shock tube had a total length of $\sim 22$ m, and an internal diameter of 355 mm. Two large scale experiments have also been carried out in a tunnel with a cross-sectional area of 6.5 m2. The results are compared with results found in the literature (Zloch, 1976; Medvedev et al., 1990; Britan et al., 2001) and previous experiments in a smaller scale by Slungaard (2002). A simple correlation based on the work of Zloch (1976) for shock wave attenuation in tube bundles and an extensive amount of experiments, is proposed. The correlation $p_{2}/p_{1}=1/(1+\theta /B)$ can be used to estimate the attenuation of the shock wave through a granular filter with filter characteristic $\theta$ . Setting B=6 will give a conservative estimate of the attenuation, while setting B=3 will give the best fit to all the results from this study and the results found in the literature. The correlation is independent of the type of driver (pressurised air or solid explosives) and upstream shock strength.