shock tube

British

noun

an apparatus in which a gas is heated to very high temperatures by means of a shock wave, usually for spectroscopic investigation of the natures and reactions of the resulting radicals and excited molecules

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Researchers then placed the head directly underneath a shock tube, which was pressurized with helium until a membrane wall burst, releasing the gas in a shock wave, Duke University explained in the statement.

From Fox News • Feb. 18, 2020

Ablating cones promised a weight advantage, but not even the shock tube was adequate to test them at the research level.

From Time Magazine Archive

The best answer so far is a type of shock tube that was described this week by Avco Manufacturing Corp., and is now operating for the Air Force in Avco's Everett, Mass, laboratory.

From Time Magazine Archive

Essentially, a shock tube is a strong-walled metal pipe, a few inches in diameter, from which the air can be pumped.

From Time Magazine Archive

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023