Similarity solutions for strong shocks in a non-ideal gas

Abstract

A group theoretic method is used to obtain an entire class of similarity solutions to the problem of shocks propagating through a non-ideal gas and to characterize analytically the state dependent form of the medium ahead for which the problem is invariant and admits similarity solutions. Different cases of possible solutions, known in the literature, with a power law, exponential or logarithmic shock paths are recovered as special cases depending on the arbitrary constants occurring in the expression for the generators of the transformation. Particular case of collapse of imploding cylindrically and spherically symmetric shock in a medium in which initial density obeys power law is worked out in detail. Numerical calculations have been performed to obtain the similarity exponents and the profiles of the flow variables behind the shock, and comparison is made with the known results.