The present study is to investigate the propagation characteristics of the impulse waves discharged from the exit of the convergent and divergent pipes. An experiment is carried out using a shock tube with an open end and is compared to the computation of the axisymmetric, compressible, unsteady Euler equations, which are solved by the second-order total variation diminishing (TVD) scheme. For the computational work, several initial compression waves are assumed inside the pipe so that those are the same to the experimental ones of the shock tube. The results show that the peak pressures of the impulse waves discharged from the exit of convergent and divergent pipes decrease with an increase in the wavelength of the initial compression wave. All of the impulse waves have a strong directivity toward the pipe axis, regardless of the exit type of the pipe employed. The impulse waves discharged from the divergent pipe are stronger than those from the straight pipe, while the impulse waves of the convergent pipe are weaker than those from the straight pipe. It is found that the convergent pipe can play a role of a passive control to reduce the peak pressure of the impulse wave. The present computations represent the experimented impulse waves with a good accuracy.