Blast mitigation by perforated plates using an explosive driven shock tube: study of geometry effects and plate numbers

This work is set in the context of blast mitigation based on geometric means, namely perforated metallic plates or grids. When a shock wave passes through a perforated plate, the flow field is modified, and new shock waves are created, as well as regions of vortices and turbulence in which the energy of the wave can be dissipated. In this study, an explosive driven shock tube (EDST) was used to visualize the interaction of a blast wave with perforated plates or with a piece of cast metallic foam. Additionally, the overpressure and the impulse of the reflected blast wave on a wall located downstream were assessed. The use of an EDST allowed the evaluation of the mitigation capacity under a high dynamic loading. Several combinations of perforated plates were tested, varying the geometry and the number of plates, as well as switching between two different spacings. When the shock wave collided with a plate, we observed that part of the incident shock wave was reflected by the plate, while the remaining wave was transmitted through it. Downstream of the plate, both the overpressure and the impulse were reduced, this effect being more prominent as the porosity of the plates decreased. When two plates were placed as obstacles, this phenomenon of reflection/transmission was repeated twice consecutively, further reducing the downstream reflected overpressure and impulse. An array of three plates or a piece of metallic foam were even more effective in mitigating the blast wave. Varying the distance between two or three plates had no effect on blast mitigation.