Head on collision of a planar shock wave with a dusty gas layer

The head-on collision of a planar shock wave with a dust-air suspension is studied numerically. In this study the suspension is placed inside a conduit adjacent to its rigid end-wall. It is shown that as a result of this collision two different types of transmitted shock waves are possible, depending on the strength of the incident shock wave and the dust loading ratio in the suspension. One possibility is a partially dispersed shock wave, the other is a compression wave. The flow fields resulting in these two options are investigated. It is shown that in both cases, at late times after the head-on reflection of the transmitted shock wave from the conduit end-wall a negative flow (away from the end-wall) is evident. The observed flow behavior may suggest a kind of dust particle lifting mechanism that could shed new light on the complex phenomenon of dust entrainment behind sliding shock waves.