Gasdynamic behaviors of reflected-shock waves in ionizing argon in a shock tube.

Abstract

Phenomena by which reflected-shock waves in ionizing argon develop to bifurcated shock wave with complicated structures in a shock tube were observed. In the present investigation, finite-difference simulations are performed for such phenomena. The thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations taking account of ionization effects are numerically solved by applying a procedure consisting of the FCT scheme and the Crank-Nicolson scheme. The computational results are compared with the experimental results. The present simulations are shown to reproduce a series of visualized reflected-shock flow fields qualitatively. This fact leads us to conclude that complicated flow fields emerging after the reflection of ionizing shock waves in a shock tube are due to interactions of reflected-shock waves with ionization relaxation processes as well as with boundary layers over the shock-tube side-wall.