An unsteady gas-particle flow in a hypersonic shock tunnel is studied numerically. The study is performed in the period from the instant when the diaphragm between the high-pressure and lowpressure chambers is opened until the end of the transition to a quasi-steady flow in the test section. The dispersed phase concentration is extremely low, and the collisions between the particles and their effect on the carrier gas flow are ignored. The particle size is varied. The time evolution of the particle concentration in the test section is obtained. Patterns of the quasi-steady flow of the dispersed phase in the throat of the Laval nozzle and the flow around a model (sphere) are presented. Particle concentration and particle velocity lag profiles at the test-section entrance are obtained. The particle-phase flow structure and the time needed for it to reach a quasi-steady regime are found to depend substantially on the particle size.Key words: shock tunnel, Laval nozzle, two-phase gas-particle flow, flow around a body, numerical simulations.Introduction. Shock tunnels have been used for experimental research of aerodynamics and physical gasdynamics problems for more than half a century [1]. Comparatively recently, such shock tunnels have been used to study hypersonic dusty-gas flows. The results of research performed in a UT-1M experimental setup at the Central Hydroaerodynamic Institute (TsAGI) are the most well-known ones. A hypersonic two-phase shock tunnel is a classical shock tunnel with an attached hypersonic contoured nozzle generating a high-velocity flow in the test section connected at the end with a vacuum chamber. For a two-phase flow to be produced in the test section, dispersed particles are injected into the high-pressure chamber at the instant of wind-tunnel start-up; these particles are then entrained by the gas flow. The structure of the unsteady gas flow developing in such a shock tunnel after diaphragm opening was studied in detail in [3]. First, a strong shock wave is formed, which moves toward the nozzle. When this wave is reflected from the nozzle walls, transverse shock waves are formed. These waves interact with each other and with the nozzle walls both regularly and irregularly with formation of triple (Mach) configurations. As a result, two intense near-axis vortices come into being and develop in the nozzle throat; later on, these vortices are entrained downstream. At the initial stage, however, these vortices exert a significant effect on the behavior of the particle phase, in particular, on the motion of fine particles. Because of different inertial properties, fine and coarse particles behave differently in an unsteady flow in the nozzle and test section. Coarse particles lag behind the carrier gas, collide with the walls of the converging part of the Laval nozzle, and are reflected from the walls. This results in redistribution of particles in the transverse direction, and the two-phase flow in the test section may become substantially nonuniform. Moreover, because of the lag of the par...