Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.The Voitenko compressor is a shaped charge adapted from its original purpose of piercing thick steel armour to the task of accelerating shock waves. It was proposed by a Russian scientist in 1965. It slightly resembles a wind tunnel. The Voitenko compressor initially separates a test gas from a shaped charge with a malleable steel plate. When the shaped charge detonates, most of its energy is focused on the steel plate, driving it forward and pushing the test gas ahead of it. Ames translated this idea into a self-destroying shock tube. A 66-pound shaped charge accelerated the gas in a 3-cm glass-walled tube 2 meters in length. The velocity of the resulting shock wave was a phenomenal 220 000 feet per second. The apparatus exposed to the detonation was, of course, completely destroyed, but not before useful data were extracted.the roots to the wing tips.Romania.