Pneumatic Rupture of a Brittle Pipe: The Depressurization Transient Adjacent to the Ruptured Zone

A simple theoretical model is developed to predict the pressure transient within a gas-pressurized pipe when an adjacent section shatters into many fragments. Comparison with experiment shows that the model correctly predicts the general form of the transient over a wide range of bursting pressure and rupture zone lengths, though the measured initial depressurization rates all fall below the predicted values.