SHOCK-WAVES PRODUCED BY IMPULSIVE LOAD - EQUATION OF STATE EFFECTS

A numerical study of the flow after impulsive load of a plane material surface is carried out. It is shown that the flow is asymptotically self-similar provided one can neglect the cold components in the equation of state. In this case the effective exponent s(t) = d ln (X(s))/d ln (t), derived from the shock trajectory X(s)(t) does not depend on the initial pressure pulse and approaches the exponent-alpha of the self-similar problem for time t --> infinity. For equations of state containing a cold pressure term, s(t) is larger than alpha and changes non-monotonically with time. Some features of the flow related to the presence of cold components in pressure and internal energy are discussed.