Thickness of Shock Fronts in Argon

Abstract
The accuracy and sensitivity of the optical reflectivity method for determining the thickness of shock fronts have been improved. The thicknesses of shock fronts in argon have been measured up to M=2.38. Most of the effort was concentrated at M=2.38 where the reciprocal thickness in mean free paths, l0/L0=0.234±0.007. At M=2.38 the front is about twenty percent thicker than calculated from the Navier‐Stokes equations but the thickness agrees very closely with that calculated by Muckenfuss using a bimodal distribution function.

This publication has 7 references indexed in Scilit: