Omri Ram has always been passionate about all things mechanical. This passion led him to pursue mechanical engineering studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in his home town of Beer Sheva. Omri joined the shock tube laboratory team at BGU as a research assistant during his undergraduate studies. As his graduation project, he led the development of a novel experimental system that simulates blast waves in a laboratory-scale apparatus. He presented this system and his results at an international conference and published them in the journal Experiments in Fluids.

Omri’s graduate studies under the supervision of Prof. Oren Sadot involve taking a novel approach to studying the old problem of shock wave interaction with a porous medium. Until now, researchers have focused on the microscopic nature of this interaction. The new approach looks at the porous medium and the surrendering air at the macroscopic level as a lump mechanical system. This approach quickly proved fruitful and instigated interesting new results, offering possible answers to numerous questions on the subject. Realizing the potential of this study, Omri enrolled in the combined MSc–PhD program and took this as his dissertation topic.

Omri has taken part in various other studies in the shock-tube laboratory, in collaboration with the Home Front Command, the Engineering Corps, the Ministry of Defense and others. These include studies of the shock-wave reflection phenomenon, of small-scale structure interaction and of blast-induced traumatic brain injuries and the detection and treatment of related post-traumatic stress disorders.