Jump Relations in a Perfect Fluid

Abstract

To say that a perfect fluid is the seat of a shock wave is to say that it undergoes a discontinuous change in state which does not change its chemical identity (no new type of molecule is created), with the result that two scalar variables are sufficient to describe it throughout the flow. It is in these conditions, and assuming that the index 1 state is fixed, that we shall study the curve (h) called the Hugoniot curve (see [25]) defined as

$$\ {e_2} - {e_1} = \frac{1}{2}\left( {{p_1} + {p_2}} \right)\left( {{v_1} - {v_2}} \right).\ $$

(II.1)