The structure of an infinitely strong shock wave for hard sphere molecules

Abstract

The structure of an infinitely strong shock wave (i.e., a shock wave with infinitely large upstream Mach number) is investigated on the basis of the Boltzmann equation. The velocity distribution function is expressed as a sum of a multiple of the Dirac delta function, centered at the upstream bulk velocity, and a remainder. Strong evidence that the remainder has a singularity in the molecular velocity space was provided by a previous Monte Carlo simulation for a hard-sphere gas [Cercignani et al., Phys. Fluids 11, 2757 (1999)]. Then, the singularity was confirmed and clarified with sufficient accuracy by a precise numerical analysis by means of a finite-difference method. More specifically, the equation for the remainder, which contains the linear collision term linearized around the delta function and the nonlinear collision term, is solved numerically for a hard-sphere gas after the nonlinear collision term is replaced by the BGK collision model. The present paper reports on the main result of this analysis.