A critical challenge of any blast simulation facility is in producing the widest possible pressure-impulse range for matching against equivalent high-explosive events. Shock tubes and blast simulators are often constrained with the lack of effective ways to control blast wave profiles and as a result have a limited performance range. Some wave shaping techniques employed in some facilities are reviewed but often necessitate extensive geometric modifications, inadvertently cause flow anomalies, and/or are only applicable under very specific configurations. This paper investigates controlled venting as an expedient way for waveforms to be tuned without requiring extensive modifications to the driver or existing geometry and could be widely applied by existing and future blast simulation and shock tube facilities. The use of controlled venting is demonstrated experimentally using the Advanced Blast Simulator (shock tube) at the Australian National Facility of Physical Blast Simulation and
Griffith University researchers will lead 17 new Discovery Projects across a broad field of knowledge after being awarded over $7.735 million from the Australian Research Council.