A dense packed sand wall is impacted by a planar shock wave in a horizontal shock tube to study the shock-sand wall interaction. The incident shock Mach number ranges from 2.18 to 2.38. A novel device for actively rupturing diaphragm is designed for the driver section of the shock tube. An apparatus for loading particles is machined by the electrical discharge cutting technique to create a dense packed particle wall. High-speed schlieren imaging system and synchronized pressure measurement system are used together to capture the wave structures and particle cloud velocity. The dynamic evolution model from dense packed particles to dense gas-solid cloud at the initial driving stage is established. The blockage and permeation effects of the sand wall work together and influence each other. The high pressure gas behind the incident shock wave blocked by the sand wall pushes the upstream front of the wall forward like a piston. Meanwhile, the high speed gas permeating through the sand wall drags the sands of the most downstream layer forward. The incident shock strength, initial sand wall thickness and particle diameter are varied respectively to investigate the shock attenuation and the wall acceleration. Increasing the sands diameter or mixing in small diameter sands can significantly attenuate the incident shock. The smaller particles or the particles in thinner wall can be dispersed into a larger range in the process of transform from dense packed particles to dense gas-solid cloud. Moreover, the stronger incident shock can disperse the particles into a larger region. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.