A numerical study of shock-induced cavity collapse

Abstract

The flow field resulting from the interaction between a planar incident shock in a solid and an embedded ellipsoidal gas cavity is examined computationally. The study is motivated by the need for improved understanding of the role of embedded cavities in the initiation of reaction in a heterogeneous explosive following the application of a shock. The system is modeled as a compressible multi-fluid flow with a sufficiently strong shock in the solid. A high-resolution, Godunov-type capturing scheme is employed to solve the governing equations numerically. The calculations are performed in parallel and use adaptive mesh refinement to obtain well-resolved solutions. The goal is to identify regions in which the shock-cavity interaction results in pressures that are substantially higher than the post-shock pressure that existed prior to the beginning of the interaction. Also of interest are the ways in which the magnitude of the elevated pressure, the extent and location of the regions where it develops, and the mechanisms that underlie such a development are influenced by the strength of the shock and the geometry of the cavity.