Blast wave reflection from wedges

While a lot of attention was given to shock wave reflections from wedges during the past four decades, only little work was published regarding the similar case of blast wave reflection from wedges. In the present paper this subject is studied experimentally and theoretically/numerically. The obtained results show that the geometry of the reflected wave pattern is similar in the two cases when both incident waves have the same initial pressure jump across their fronts. However, different reflected pressure signatures (history) are observed in these two cases. The pressures obtained behind a reflected shock wave are always higher than those obtained behind the corresponding similar blast wave. In the present case differences as high as 17% were observed.