Self-similar hypervelocity shock interactions with oblique contact discontinuities (Q1288875)

The two-dimensional inviscid refraction of a shock wave at an oblique contact discontinuity is self-similar; i.e. it depends only upon the variables \(\xi\equiv x/t\), \(\eta\equiv y/t\). We transform the compressible Euler equations into the self-similar \((\xi,\eta)\) coordinates and solve the resulting boundary-value problem by an implicit equilibrium flux method. We present results for strong shock (\(M\geq 10)\) where \(M\) is the incident shock Mach number) interactions with an oblique contact discontinuity separating an inert gas from a gas which exhibits high-temperature chemistry effects. To model high-temperature effects, we employ Lighthill's ideal dissociating gas model. Comparison between the frozen and equilibrium limits, both of which are self-similar, indicates large changes in peak density and temperatures.