Eulerian formulation of transport equations for three-dimensional shock waves in simple elastic solids

Abstract

The propagation of a three-dimensional shock wave in an elastic solid is studied. The material is assumed to be a simple elastic solid in which the Cauchy stress depends on the deformation gradient only. It is shown that the growth or decay of a discontinuity ψ depends on (i) an unknown quantity φ− behind the shock wave, (ii) the two principal curvatures of the shock surface, (iii) the gradient on the shock surface of the shock wave speeds and (iv) the inhomogeneous term which depends on the motion ahead of the shock surface and vanishes when the motion ahead of the shock surface is uniform. If a proper choice is made of the propagation vectorb along which the growth or decay of the discontinuity is measured, the dependence on item (iii) can be avoided. However,b assumes different directions depending on the choice of discontinuity ψ with which one is concerned and the unknown quantity φ− behind the shock wave on which one chooses to depend. As in the case of one-dimensional shock waves, the growth (or decay) of one discontinuity may not be accompanied by the growth (or decay) of other discontinuities. A universal equation relating the growth or decay of discontinuities in the normal stress, normal velocity and specific volume is also presented.