Visualization of blast waves created by exploding bridge wires

Blast waves created by small exploding bridge wires are used as a test bed for the development of a particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique that uses polymers, seeded with scattering particles, as dynamic witness plates. Combined with pulsed, incoherent schlieren photography, the PIV method permits visualization of the instantaneous velocity vector field in a plane cutting through the blast wave.