Studies of non-classical shock wave phenomena

Abstract.

Most of our physical intuition regarding compressible flows and shock wave dynamics is based on experience with perfect gases in the context of an ideal fluid description. While this model is often a good approximation, there are some hydrodynamic systems in which shocks can exhibit behavior that lies outside of the classical phenomenology. Here, we present numerical simulations of a variety of such exotic shock wave effects, including “anomalous” behavior in so-called Bethe-Zel'dovich-Thompson fluids, shock “splitting,” the D'yakov-Kontorovich instability, and the influence of nonlinear heat transfer on shock structure in strong point explosions.