The Virginia Tech Shock Tube Research Facility is the largest explosion simulator located at a university in the United States. I am currently working with Dr. Eric Jacques, a structural engineering professor, on a project regarding combustion of fine aluminum particle-gas dust clouds.
So far, I have had two main responsibilities for this project. First, blowing up a cloud of dust requires a system to create that cloud. Releasing and combusting the dust must happen at specific time intervals, and I have created an Arduino control system to accomplish this. Second, we are using ionization probes to measure the speed of the explosion. I have designed a circuit to read this data.
Testing is beginning soon. I will update this page when I am able to release more information.