THE STRUCTURE OF RADIATIVE SHOCK-WAVES - I - THE METHOD OF GLOBAL ITERATIONS

The structure of steady plane-parallel radiative shock waves propagati ng through the hydrogen gas undergoing partial ionization and excitati on of bound atomic states is investigated in terms of the self-consist ent solution of the equations of fluid dynamics, radiation transfer an d atomic kinetics. The shock wave model is represented by a flat finit e slab with no incoming radiation from external sources at both its bo undaries. The self-consistent solution is obtained using the global it eration procedure each step of which involves (1) integration of the f luid dynamics and rate equations for the preshock and postshock region s, consecutively, both solutions being fitted by the Rankine-Hugoniot relations at the discontinuous jump; (2) solution of the radiation tra nsfer equation for the whole slab. The global iteration procedure is s hown to converge to the stable solution which allows for the,strong co upling of the gas flow and the radiation field produced by this flow. Application of the method is demonstrated for the shock waves with ups tream velocities of 15 Km s(-1) less than or equal to U-1 less than or equal to 60 Km s(-1) (i.e. with upstream Mach numbers 2.3 less than o r equal to M-1 less than or equal to 9.3) and the hydrogen gas of unpe rturbed temperature T = 3000K and density rho = 10(-10) gmcm(-3).