Self-Similar Blast Wave

Abstract

Self-Similar Blast Wave - The concept of self-similarity played a key role in the development of blast wave theory. More specifically, it has been formulated to explore the effects of the atom bomb explosion. For that purpose, the blast wave is considered as a gasdynamic flow field generated by the deposition of a finite amount of energy in zero time at a geometric point in an unbounded compressible medium – an event referred to as a point explosion: Ipso facto, the flow field is geometrically symmetric, while its extent is bounded by a gasdynamic front, whereas its structure is governed by conservation principles expressed in terms of time dependent, spatially one-dimensional partial differential equations. This chapter presents the salient features of linearly, cylindrically and spherically symmetric fields created by point explosions whose fronts propagate into a vacuum.